


Dream Until Your Dreams Come True

by crossingwinter



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: (basically the strangest experience of a weird polyamory thing), (it makes sense i promise), Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Beta pairing: Sansa Stark/Edric Dayne, Beta pairing: Sansa Stark/Sandor Clegane, F/M, soulmatesfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-05
Updated: 2014-12-31
Packaged: 2018-02-28 05:19:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 45,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2720162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crossingwinter/pseuds/crossingwinter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arya likes the way things are with her soulmate—playing softball in dreams, talking about nothing and everything.  But it still feels like cheating when she dreams of Gendry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_Dream lover, where are you_  
 _With a love, oh, so true_  
 _And the hand that I can hold_  
 _To feel you near as I grow old_

* * *

 

“He likes baseball. That’s all I know. That’s all that matters.”

“All that matters? Don’t you want to know more about him?”

The ball lands in the basket of her mitt, and she pops it to her left hand and hurls it back across the quad.  Gendry catches it easily and pops it to his right hand, and tosses it back.  He’s got a curious expression on his face, like he can’t quite believe what she’s saying, but what does he care? This is the first time he’s ever asked her about her soulmate, in nearly three years of knowing her.

“What’s the point? So long as he likes baseball, I don’t care,” Arya responds testily as the ball lands in leather again.

“You don’t care what your soulmate is like?  Not even a little?” Gendry asks.  His voice is pure disbelief and Arya almost laughs.

“I’ll care when I meet him. Besides, soulmates are more trouble than they’re worth.  For now, all that matters is that he likes baseball.”

* * *

“Watch your elbow—you’re sending your pitches wild,” Syrio calls to her.  She bites her lip and hops up and down, re-centering and taking another ball from the feeder.  “Careful now—don’t overstep.  Precise as a cat on a high-wire, Arya.”

The pitch is placed perfectly and Syrio smiles.  “Good. Now do it again.”

She centers herself on the mound and sends the ball down the middle of the plate again.

“Good—good,” says Syrio. “You have been shaky in your steps, but you’re coming back to it.”

She grimaces. “Is it so obvious?”

“To others? No.  To me?  Yes.”  He raises an eyebrow at her.  “Why?”

“I dream baseball sometimes,” she says. 

“Baseball? Not softball?”

“Yeah.”

“Aha,” says Syrio. “You must dream softball then. You are teaching your muscles new things in your sleep.”

“I thought you might say that,” she sighs.  He won’t be happy about that.  He doesn’t like softball as much as baseball.  But he’ll understand. And if he doesn’t she’ll make him.

She finds the seams of the ball, lines them up, and swings her arm, stepping neatly forward as she does. It lands exactly where she wants it to.

* * *

“Did you watch the Dragons game earlier?” she calls to him.  The ball is a softball tonight, and she knows he’ll complain because he’s a snob that way and says that softballs don’t go as fast and don’t make a nice thwacking sound when they connect to his bat, and that the diamond is so tiny it's hardly even fair, but Syrio’s right—this feels right, and she feels glad.  She likes softball.  It’s where her muscle memory is, and as fun as it is to pitch baseball for a change, baseball isn’t her sport.  She’s played softball for years, ever since her dad signed her up for the local girls league because she saw Jon and Robb playing baseball and wanted a go herself. She thought it was stupid that girls weren’t allowed to play baseball properly—still did—but these days that carries on almost beneath the surface, a mild irritation drowned out by practice and games and teammates and stats and making sure to stretch everything out properly after a good pitching session.  She lives and breathes softball and at this point, she can’t imagine her life without it.

Her soulmate makes an indistinct groan and swings his bat behind his head so that he’s holding it in both hands behind his neck, stretching his chest.  It’s funny to her—that she sees his body more clearly than his face. She can see the way his pecs seem to want to burst through his baseball uniform but, depending on the night, his face is either blurry or has that look of a lottery card that’s been scratched out, always hidden from her.  “I have literally never seen a more painful game.  Do you think Targaryen’s ever going to be able to actually play?”

“Given the amount of money they’re paying him, I certainly hope so,” she grins.  “You hit better than he does.”

“I hit better than most people.”

“Arrogant,” she teases and sends the softball towards home.  He swings and misses.  “Arrogant bastard who can’t even hit a fucking pitch,” she calls again, doing a little happy dance as he fetches the ball.  He tosses it up and hits it lightly to her and she catches it barehanded, sending a jolt through her palm to her elbow.

“That,” he says, lining up with the plate and swiveling his hips slightly as he raises his bat again, “was to make you feel better about throwing something slow and fat right down the center of the plate.”

“Oh really?” she says, raising an eyebrow.

“Yep.”

She pitches again, and he hits it far beyond the stands that are miles and miles away because this is all a dream, and he trots around first, to second, to third, to home.

“Need I say more?” he says as he steps onto home base.

“Shut up,” she mutters. “Now go get me another ball, will you?” The ball basket is by home tonight.

“As m’lady commands.” He mocks a bow and goes towards the dugout and he has to play in real life, not just for fun, because he’s got a player’s ass—all muscle, and she grins to herself as she watches him bend over to grab another ball.

* * *

“So you play with him in your dreams, but you don’t know what he looks like?” demands Lyanna Mormont as Arya’s lacing up her cleats the next day.  It’s an afternoon practice, and it’s fucking hot and Arya does  _not_ look forward to playing with the hot sun beating down on her hair.  Lyanna, at least, also has dark hair, and is also from the North and hates it when the summer sun—because fuck the southerners who say that  _this_ is only springtime; springtime you’re still supposed to be wearing wool socks and sweaters all the time—beats down and makes her scalp boil in its own sweat. 

“I do—just not his face,” Arya says.  She can’t remember who on the team already knows this.  She knows she’s told some of them, but apparently not Lyanna. “It’s fine though. I like playing with him.” Baseball, softball—both of them…they’ve always been a part of her.  She finds it hard to explain how.  Going to Wolves games with Dad and Jon, playing in the local league growing up—those had been the times when she’d been at her happiest, the times she’d felt that she could conquer the world.  Maybe her soulmate understood that, felt the same way, even, which was why they only ever played.

“I mean—of course it’s _fine_ ,” says Elia, coming over and pecking Lyanna on the cheek.  “That’s how it started off with this one.”

“It’s also fine,” says Shireen, who’s sitting on the ground in front of her locker, stretching her legs out, “because soulmates aren’t always about sex.  Not everyone’s as horny as you two.”

Elia sticks her tongue out at Shireen.  “What, like you and Devan don’t have tons and tons of sex all the time.”

“Yeah—but it’s not sex that makes a soulmate,” Shireen says.  “Sharing important things is what makes the soulmate.  Everyone knows that.”

Arya knows that too well, but it’s not her place to throw her siblings’ affairs into the discussion, so she shrugs.  “Yeah, and for me and mine, it’s baseball.”

“What’s his team, then?”

“He likes the Dragons,” she says, and everyone moans.

“No, no, no!” says Cynthea.

“I don’t care if he’s your soulmate—this ends here,” agrees Alysanne.

“The _Dragons_?  Has he no self-respect?”

“Maybe he’s from King’s Landing?” suggests Myrcella, shooting what is supposed to be a helpful look at Arya.

“Or maybe he has crap taste in baseball teams,” says Lyanna forcefully.

“Better than the Bats at least,” says Arya, almost defensively.  It’s not _his_ fault he has crap taste in baseball teams.  Well, maybe it is, but they can’t get up in his face about it. Besides, Gendry likes the Dragons too—she watches games with him sometimes in the student union because no one else would—and no one gets up in his face about them.  But then again, Gendry is very big—people probably don’t want to start things with him.

“Well, the Bats are cursed,” says Obella, “Everyone knows that.”

“Anyway,” says Lyanna loudly, “we were talking about how you still don’t know what he looks like.”

“Yeah, well. His face is always a bit fuzzy,” Arya shrugs, suddenly feeling self conscious about it.  Surely this had happened to one of them, hadn’t it? She remembered telling the team about it her freshman year on the bus back from Riverrun, and Megga had just stared at her in blank confusion. 

She can’t ask Shireen, of course—Shireen’s known her soulmate was her soulmate for _ages_ now.  They got kindergarten married and everything, and Shireen had once confessed drunkenly—during initiation last year—that they’d even played doctor together starting when they’d been six. 

“I can’t even see mine,” says Cynthea.  “No idea who they are.  Their voice is indistinct too—can’t tell if it’s a girl or a guy,” she sighs.   

“But you talk, yeah?” asks Arya.  “You talk about things, right?”

“Yeah.  Stuff.  They haven’t got a big family like I do.  So it’s just usually me complaining and them snuggling with me.” She frowns.  “I can’t even tell what type of body they’ve got. It’s all confusing.”

“Maybe they’re still sorting out identities?” suggests Obella.  “I know when Alleras was transitioning, his soulmate was all sorts of confused about things.  It settled in the end though.”

“Oy—you lot,” calls Joy into the locker room.  “You nearly ready?”

And they file out to the field and begin doing their laps.

* * *

As much as Arya would like to pretend, though, not everything is softball.  Mother had been thrilled when she’d picked a math and econ major.  “It’s so useful,” she’d said happily into the phone, and Arya had been pleased, because Sansa was majoring in literature with a focus on medieval poetry, which was about as useless as you could get.  More useless, certainly, than trying to play softball professionally. She had wanted to for a long time, and a part of her still does, but the part of her that has her mother’s voice reminds her constantly that the money isn’t as good as it is in the men’s baseball league, that no one watches games, that she’ll only be able to play for a few years before her body starts to wear down and then what will she do with herself? 

Better to go into something with numbers.  Numbers are where the jobs are these days.  Business, and data analysis and research and the like, taking Braavosi on the side so she could do work with the Iron Bank if her career brought her into finance. Math would take her everywhere softball wouldn’t.

She’s good at it, at least—that’s the fun part.  She’s always had a head for numbers—working through team stats that the _Winterfell Herald_ printed every day with her father, calculating and recalculating RBIs and ERAs as she listened to games and checking her math against the numbers printed the next day, crowing with delight when she was right and they were wrong.  She’s good at it—but that doesn’t make it easy, and though she should be paying attention—rapt, she thinks is the word that Sansa would pick—in her lessons, sometimes it’s a little too easy for her to get distracted.

Arya is sitting in her Advanced Quantometrics class when Bran’s name flashes across the chat feature in her open email account.

_Bran Stark: I told Jojen._

Arya frowns. There are so many different things that Bran could tell Jojen that this is hardly enough information to go on. So she wings it.

_Arya Stark: How’d he take it?_

She watches the little message “Bran Stark is typing” for about thirty seconds, completely missing the solution to the problem that Professor Ryswell is putting on the board.

_Bran Stark: Not well.  I mean well.  But like—not well at all.  I mean, he gets it, right?  Of course he does. Because he knows I’m not gay, and he knows I love him, but I’m not ~in love with him~ you know? So he gets that, and that’s good. And he doesn’t begrudge that. But on the other hand, I think he’s devastated.  Like it would have been easier if it weren’t Meera, right?_

Ah.  So that’s what Bran had told Jojen.

_Arya Stark: You told him it was Meera?_

_Bran Stark: Yeah.  I did.  I…I had to be completely honest. And like—fuck I know she’s got her own soulmate, right?  I’m not stupid or anything.  I am pretty damn sure I don’t stand a chance.  She’s also Robb’s age.  So there’s that too.  But…I don’t know, I just couldn’t not tell him.  It felt wrong.  It was making everything suck._

_Arya Stark: And it doesn’t suck now?_

_Bran Stark: oh, it REALLY sucks now.  But it’s a more honest form of sucking. Like an “everything’s out on the table and it sucks” kind of sucking, rather than a “I can’t tell you this thing and it’s eating my soul” kind of sucking._

_Arya Stark: I guess that makes sense.  I’m sorry things suck._

_Bran Stark: Yeah.  I know.  It also would be easier if he were still in school here._

_Arya Stark: He’s working in Winterfell, though, isn’t he?_

_Bran Stark: Yeah—but his schedule’s different now. We don’t sleep as much at the same times anymore._

_Arya Stark: So, all-in-all, shitty end to your freshman year?_

_Bran Stark: That’s putting it lightly._

* * *

She collapses on the couch in the student union and toes off her sneakers.  Her hair is still wet from the showers, and she has about fifteen problems to do for Advanced Quantometrics, not to mention three pages of Braavosi to write for her Friday seminar, but she doesn’t really care because the Dragons are playing the Wolves tonight and if the Wolves don’t win, Gendry’ll never let her hear the end of it.

He comes bearing two bottles of beer.

“May the best team win,” he says, popping the top off hers and handing it to her.

“Didn’t know you turned into a Wolves fan,” she says somberly, taking a swig of the stout. Gendry likes stout. She likes IPA. They don’t talk about it.

He stares at her incredulously, then laughs. “Nice try there, dickhead.”

“Who’re you calling dickhead?” she demands.

“You.”  He puts the bottle to his lips, kicks his feet up onto the coffee table in front of them and turns on the television. They are singing the national anthem at the stadium in King’s Landing, and Arya wishes she were there. The feeling of being lost in the crowd, probably with Jon or her dad, waiting for them to throw out the first pitch so the game could get going, screaming herself hoarse as Cassel came up to bat again…instead she was stuck in Harrenhal with stupid Gendry and his stupid Dragons t-shirt, the smell of his pine deodorant.  Well, at least it’s pine.  Pine could remind her of home.  At least it isn’t something stupid and ghastly that reminded her of middle school.

“Not my fault you like a dumb team.”

“There is nothing dumb about the Dragons,” Gendry says.  Connington throws out the first pitch and Cassel hits it and sprints to first.

“Sure,” snorts Arya.

“There’s not.”

“Look, I’m not saying you’re wrong.  But you’re wrong. King’s Landing doesn’t have a team.”

“It does, actually, and they’re called the Dragons.”

“And the only reason they exist is because they moved from Highgarden and changed their name.”

“The Reach did _not_ need two baseball teams,” Gendry says dryly.

“Who’d you like before the Dragons, then?” demands Arya.

“Doesn’t matter. That’s ancient history.”

“Is not,” she snaps.

“It is.”

“It’s four years ago, Gendry.  That’s hardly ancient.”

“Yeah?  You were in high school then.”  Sometimes she forgets that Gendry had a few years before college.  He doesn’t talk about it much—she just knows he’s more than a year older than her and his jaw juts out if you ask him about it.  She never understands what he chooses to tell her and what not to tell her. She knows he tells her more than he tells other people—she can hear it just from the way that the baseball team makes comments that she knows probably niggle at him while he grunts and grows surly—things like nudging him to drink more, or making fun of him for being that much older than them, or that he actually _stays_ in Harrenhal on summer holidays, things that they don’t seem to know frustrate him, and which she’s known for ages. But at the same time, there he is, determinedly close-mouthed about other parts of him.  

Part of her wonders if he’ll ever be fully open with her.  The part of her she tells to shut up more often wonders if he’d ever want to.

“So?”

“So—ancient history. I won’t be held accountable for my high school self and my high school self’s choices.”

“Well, my preschool self was smarter than your high school self because she decided that the Wolves were the best.”

As if to prove her point, Fat Tom knocks a ball out of the park and she lets out a whoop and sticks her tongue out at Gendry.  He takes a sip of his beer and ignores her.

* * *

She walks back to campus with Weasel, their freshman pitcher. She hasn’t accidentally hit a hitter in a few weeks at this point, which has all of them in a good mood.

“Do you think that we might make playoffs this year?” Weasel asks her. She’s small—smaller even than Arya, and her ponytail is longer too, swinging back and forth and brushing against the top of her huge black backpack.

“Could,” Arya says. “We’re beginning to get on track, though it’s too early to tell.”

“One of my friends in my Non-Violence and the Theory of Peaceful Protest seminar thinks we won’t.”

“Well, your classmate is probably an idiot who doesn’t know much about softball,” Arya says, shooting Weasel a sideways glance. 

“He says that the baseball team won’t make playoffs, and if they don’t, we won’t.”

“What’s the baseball team got to do with anything?” Arya asks, raising her eyebrows.  “The only thing we have in common with them is the transport to games.”

“I…” Weasel blushes. “I don’t know. He just…he just sounded like he knew what he was talking about.”

Arya rolls her eyes. “Every idiot thinks they know what they’re talking about just because they’re a guy and guys know sports better than girls.  Bull fucking shit.  Bet he doesn’t even know the differences between softball and baseball.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Weasel mumbles, and Arya sighs.

“Sorry—habit. People give us shit. You get used to it, but you also don’t, you know?” 

Weasel cocks her head, her brows knitting together.  “What do you mean—give you shit?”  She sounds nervous, but not nervous enough to hide her curiosity.

“Oh—usually it’s bullshit about how softball is a watered down version of baseball.  Anyone who says that to you—threaten to wind them with a pitch that’ll have them bruised ‘til next month.  That shuts them up fast.  Or there’s the bullshit about how we’re all lesbians and masturbate on our bats.”  Weasel’s eyes widen, and Arya plows on, “ _Even though_ most of the team isn’t, and _even_ if they _were_ , what difference does that make?  They just like tearing us down.  So don’t let them.”

“Don’t let them,” Weasel echoes.

“Tell that dickbag in your class that we’re going to make play-offs this year.  Also, if he says shit like that to you, he’s not a very good friend.”  Arya throws her arm over Weasel’s shoulder and squeezes the younger girl to her. “Friends don’t put down other friends. That’s not friendship. Friends support one another—look out for one another.”  She smiles down at Weasel.

Weasel smiles back.

* * *

“What’s yours like?” she asks Gendry when they next play catch.  They’re in the middle of the quad, and there are some prospective student tours going past and Arya’s sure that the tour guides want to kiss them for making Harrenhal look like a fun place to go to school.

“My what?”

“Your soulmate?”

Gendry frowns at her, and she almost misses his throw.  “She’s alright,” he says slowly.

“Alright?” Arya says. “I’m sure she’d be _thrilled_ to hear you say that.”

“Well—I mean, we don’t talk much.  I don’t know, I think she’s distant sometimes.  Warm. But…distant.  It’s fine though.  I like the dreams we have.  But I don’t know if she has a real impression of me.” He catches the ball she throws back to him and tosses it into his mitt a few times, not looking at Arya.

“Maybe she’s going through things?” Arya suggests, thinking of what Obella had said about Alleras.

“Maybe,” Gendry says. “It’s ok.  I mean, you’re supposed to be happy with your soulmate, right?  And I’m not unhappy—I’m just…I want to know her better is all.”

“You will,” Arya says, shooting him a supportive smile.

Gendry looks at her and then rolls his eyes and pops the ball over to her.  “This from the girl who only cares that her soulmate likes baseball.”

“Baseball is important,” Arya says, throwing the ball back to him.

“Yeah—but it’s not everything, is it?”

“You only say that because you like a shitty baseball team.”

* * *

“How did you find baseball?” Arya asks him that night as he lines up to the plate, his face blurry but the muscles in his arms and legs bulging as he crouches down, shifts his hips, and waits for her pitch.

“Just did.”

“Your dad didn’t take you to a game?” she asks hopefully as she throws the ball.  He bunts it back to her and she catches it.

“No.   I don’t have a dad,” he says. “It’s just me and mum back home.  She works at a pub and they’d have games on the television and I just got sucked in.”

“What’s your team?” she asks.

“My first team was the Wolves,” he says.  “When they won the series when I was eight, I thought I would die of happiness.”

“Your first team?” Arya asks.  “You can’t just switch teams. Because such an act is base treachery and I’m not sure I can trust you after that.”

“Well, I did.”

“ _Why?”_ she demands.

“Found out my dad liked the Wolves.”  The response was so simple, but there was a bite to his voice, and Arya felt her questions die in her throat.  She threw him one just down the middle of the plate and he knocked it clear of the stands.

“What about you?” he calls to her as he circles the bases. 

“My dad and brothers took me to a game when I was six.  I was hooked after that.”

“Sounds nice. Family pastime?” he asks.

“Close enough. Me and my brothers and my dad. My mum and sister don’t care for it too much, but that’s their problem.  It was…it was sort of nice.”

“Nice?” he asks as he reaches third.

“Yeah.  It was the one thing my sister couldn’t do better than me—well, apart from math.  But that doesn’t count.  It was the one thing she didn’t want to touch.”

“Oh.”  He’s back at home now, picking up his bat again.

“What do they think about you playing?  Your dad and brothers?”

“They love it. When I was in high school my dad came to all my games, even though he had to go back to work afterwards. And my brothers used to play catch with me.”  Her soulmate pauses while fetching her another ball to throw.  “What?” she asks.

“Is this some sort of ‘sleeping with your dad’ kind of thing, then?  These baseball dream settings?”

She rolls her eyes. “Don’t be stupid. And besides—that’s not real psychology.  Just because people _thought_ that those sorts of complexes were real doesn’t mean anything.  I just like baseball and like sharing it with you is all. It’s important to me that we share it.” She swallows, and her next words sound a little gruff, but better gruff than melodramatic.  “Like—really important.”

He throws the ball out at her and she catches it.  “I was teasing, you know,” he says.

“Didn’t sound like it.”

“Well, I was.” He squats down again.

“Why do you always shift your hips like that when you line up at the plate?” she asks.

“Do I?” he asks vaguely. “I’d never noticed.”

“Yeah—you do.”

“Dunno.”

She throws the ball and he sends it into left field, and she runs out to get it, racing him to the ball.

They reach the ball at the same time and their hands touch when picking it up and a jolt runs up Arya’s arm. Arya blushes and looks away.

“For what it’s worth,” he says.  “It matters to me that we play baseball too.”  He squeezes her hand around the baseball, and they walk back to the infield together.

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Softball Team is:
> 
> Arya (pitcher), Myrcella (catcher), Shireen (third base), Lyanna Mormont (short stop), Joy Hill (left field), Elia Sand (center field), Obella Sand (first base), Alysanne Bulwer (second base), Cynthea Frey (right field), Weasel (pitcher), Eleyna Westerling (Pitcher), Rosamund Lannister (Pitcher)
> 
> The Baseball Team is:
> 
> Gendry (second base), Anguy (center field), Lem (left field), Tom (right field), Ned Dayne (first base), Merrit O’Moontown (pitcher), Jon O’Nutten (pitcher), Puddingfoot, Kyle (pitcher), Harwin (pitcher), Jack-Be-Lucky (third base), Likely Luke (short stop), Dennett, Mudge, Notch, Beardless Dick (catcher)


	2. Chapter 2

Ned looks grouchy when they all get on the bus for Riverrun and Arya sits next to him instead of Gendry.

“What’s going on?” she asks him, kicking her bag under Lyanna’s seat.

“The usual,” he mumbles sadly. 

“What’s usual?” Arya asks gently.

“She hasn’t dreamed with me in a week,” he says, looking down at his hands.  “And it fucking sucks, all right?”

“Has she—” Arya pauses, picks her words carefully.  “Has she said anything about it?  Maybe she hasn’t been dreaming about anything at all.”

Ned looks at her sideways and Arya feels stupid for having said it.  Ned knows Sansa better than Arya ever will.  “If she didn’t dream at all, she wouldn’t look guilty in the morning.  I _know_ she’s dreaming with _him_.” His words are bitter and pained and she wonders what it must be like for him.  The whole point of soulmates was that you weren’t supposed to get jealous.  You were supposed to have someone you could turn to always, who would be out for you always.

But Sansa has two, and as far as Arya knew, Ned and Sandor only have Sansa. Sandor isn’t even nearby—he’s volunteering doing some logistical work at a monastery, and Sansa has never even expressed any inclination to…well, Arya wouldn’t know. She and Sansa didn’t talk about this sort of thing.  She actually made it a point to keep Sansa off the subject of soulmates. At first, it had been because Sansa would go all starry-eyed and talk about how romantic it was, and how lovely and perfect it would all be; these days it was more because bringing up soulmate dreams made Sansa’s gaze drop to her hands. It’s not unheard of—having two soulmates the way Sansa does.  Arya had read some teen novels about such cases in high school. They’d all seemed that much more exciting before it happened to Sansa, though.  And given that Bran sometimes did the same thing if Arya wanted to talk about her soulmate, it made Arya wonder if they hadn’t all grown up with false hopes looking at how perfect and adorable their parents were…except they shouldn’t have because of Jon…Maybe the Stark family was just cursed or something, Sansa with her two, Bran not being in love with Jojen, Arya unable to see hers’ face, and Ygritte…

“Isn’t there some sort of way that you can…I don’t know…work it out so it’s fair?” she asks.

“I shouldn’t have to,” Ned mutters.  “I shouldn’t have to.  She’s my soulmate. It’s supposed to just be us. Why does he get to have a full week of her? _I_ don’t get that.”

“Maybe he’s…maybe he’s having a bad time?” Arya suggests.  She remembers Sansa having told her that Sandor has a lot of issues—drinking, violence, disillusionment—not to mention the whole host of problems that came from having a brother who’d once tried to kill him.  Sansa said that usually their dreams involved him crying in her arms while she sang to him.  Arya hadn’t rolled her eyes outwardly, but there was definitely some part of her that was not surprised that this was how Sansa spent her soulmate dreams.  Arya preferred playing baseball.

“So?  I am too,” Ned mutters before shaking himself and looking chagrinned.  “You’re right though.  I’m not—not in comparison anyway.  And besides, I still see her every day it’s just…it’s not the same.  She never feels fully mine when she’s thinking of him. Even sex is…” he pauses and blushes and Arya rolls her eyes.

“I know you and my sister have sex, Ned.  You live together.”

“Yeah—but I don’t know if you’re supposed to talk about your sex patterns with your girlfriend’s sister.”

“Probably not, but you started it and I’m not traumatized yet, so you might as well keep going.”

“Well…when she dreams with him, the sex is distant.  And that’s not how it’s supposed to be.  If she alternates with us, it’s usually fine, but…I don’t know. I just feel in a lurch.”

Arya squeezes his hand. “She’ll be back in your dreams soon enough.  I promise. She never likes hurting people.”

Ned smiles wryly. “You’re both like that, I guess.”

* * *

They win against Riverrun, but the boys lose, which puts them at pretty much equal in the league since the boys won against Gulltown where they lost.  She sits with Gendry on the bus ride back, giving each other a rundown of their games.  The way he talks about it, his eyes so intense she can’t look away from them, makes her wish not for the first time that she could watch their games. She hadn’t even been pitching this one—it had been Weasel who had.  But the thought of leaving her team’s bench to go to the next field over and watch the boys was a horrible and traitorous thought. Besides, Weasel had looked so nervous during the top of each inning while she sat and waited to take the mound again and had looked positively devastated with each hit she’d given away. Arya couldn’t have left her like that. So Arya contents herself with listening to Gendry until the bus lulls her to sleep and her head droops onto his shoulder.

* * *

“What’s your mum like?” she asks him as her arm arcs and she spends the ball spinning towards home. He smacks it and it gets lost in the stadium lights for a moment, then Arya raises her mitt and it lands right in her hand.  “Nice one,” she grins.

“Tired of running for the dugout, really,” he says.  “How come you never dream the feeder out by the mound?”

“How come you never do?” she shoots back at him.

“These are your dreams,” he shrugs. 

“My dreams?” That’s odd. She’d always thought they were _their_ dreams.  “What do you mean by that.”

“You’re the one that sets them up because you go to sleep before I do.”  She’d never noticed before, but now that he mentions it, he always arrives at the field after her.  “I don’t mind, of course.  There’d be some variation if I did, but…yeah they’re yours.”

She frowns. “I still don’t—”

“It’s in dream psych. Did you never take any?”

“No,” she says quickly, biting her lip.  She should have. It was as common a psychology class as intro; hell, it was a huge part of intro psych.  But she’d decided to be clever and take Human Emotion instead, before learning that she didn’t like psychology very much and dropping it as a field altogether soon thereafter.

“Well, dream psych says that each of us has a say in dreams.  And that’s why you get different kinds all the time—it’s based in variation.”

“So what would you dream about?” she asks. 

“I dunno,” he shrugs. “I guess that’s why we’re playing baseball, isn’t it?”

He taps home with his bat and she sends him another pitch.  This one sails so far away it mixes with the twinkling stars overhead. He doesn’t run around the bases this time, he just walks to the mound and stands in front of her. He’s neither shorter than her nor taller than her, she realizes, and yet somehow both at the same time. It’s eerie. 

“Can you see me?” he asks.

“Of course I can, idiot,” she says, poking him in the chest and stomach at the same time.

“Nah—you can’t, can you?”

“I can—”

“What do I look like, then?” he demands.

“Like—” she scrambles, “You’ve got a big stupid face.”

“You can’t say, can you? Because you can’t see.”

He turns around and walks back to home plate.

“Can you see me?” she asks after him.

He is walking backwards now, facing her fully, and he calls out, “Clear as day,” and she feels hot shame burning in her stomach.

* * *

Clear as day. It’s all she can think of the next day.  The sensation of hot shame doesn’t go away, but, confusingly enough, it mixes together with some sort of chilling guilt which leaves her feeling even worse.  He sees her perfectly clearly, knows what she looks like and everything, and she—she knows he’s got a nice set of muscles, and a  _really_ nice ass, but…apart from that? 

And what does she even say to him about that?  Is there anything she can say?  She should know by now, shouldn’t she?  Should know how to make him feel better that she hasn’t got a clue what he looks like. But she doesn’t. She barely knows anything about him, and suddenly the fun they’ve had playing baseball all these years, relaxing games after long days of school seem like they don’t really count towards anything, because she realizes the only thing she really knows about him is that his dad’s a moron who made him hate the Wolves.  He had dodged the question about his mum, and she…she doesn’t know anything about him.

Except the baseball.

She’d told Gendry that baseball was important, that baseball was the only thing that mattered, but suddenly she feels like baseball has just been…she’s not sure.  It hasn’t kept them apart from one another, but it hasn’t made them closer, has it?

She wonders what Gendry gets up to with his soulmate that makes her feel so distant to him.  She wonders if her soulmate plays catch with his friends and complains about how she can’t see his face.

The thought makes her so upset that she does what she always does when she is sad: she calls Jon. And, on top of that, he picks up for once.

“Hullo?” he asks glumly, and it’s as if every thought in her head up until that very moment has completely evaporated.

“How’re you holding up?” she asks him.

“Why is that always the first thing everyone asks me?” he demands angrily.  “I’m not holding up fine, thank you very much. Is that what you want to hear?”

“Yes,” says Arya, though it breaks her heart to say it.  “I’d rather hear how you are than you pretending to be happy or not or whatever.”

“I wouldn’t pretend to be happy,” Jon snaps.

“No.  I know.  But you’d pretend not to hurt.  You’d shove it down somewhere.  March on like some sort of stoic soldier.  She wouldn’t want that.”

“Don’t tell me what she’d want,” Jon says darkly.  “Don’t even think of it.  I know what she’d want.”

“You don’t have to bite my head off,” Arya says quietly, and she hears Jon sigh on the other end of the phone.  The sigh turns into bitter laughter fairly quickly, and when it doesn’t stop, she wonders if he’s crying.

“You don’t think you’d miss someone when you’re asleep, would you?” he asks, and he’s definitely crying, she can hear it in his voice.  Arya doesn’t know what to say.  “You’d think it would be a little easier but it’s harder because you go to a place and she’s just not there anymore.  She’s _gone_.”

* * *

“Do you ever want to help someone and they don’t want to let you help them?” she asks Gendry. They’re sitting in the student union again, and their beers are empty on the table in front of them, and the Dragons are down five to one against the Lions and Arya’s not quite in the mood to make fun of Gendry for it. 

He glances at her and rolls his eyes.  She elbows him. “That was a serious question, butthead,” she snaps.

“Sorry. I was just rolling my eyes because it’s dumb and the answer is obviously ‘obviously.’”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees and she notices how broad his shoulders are as he does it.  No wonder he’s their slugger.  He’s made to hit home runs. “It’s the human condition, to resist people who are trying to help you.  I do it, you do it, everyone does it.  Why?”

“My brother,” Arya says. “The one whose soulmate died last year.  And he’s still a mess.”

The teasing look on Gendry’s face fades into one of pity, and he grimaces.  “Sorry ‘bout that.  I shouldn’t have been flippant.”

“No, but it was honest,” she says.  “Gods, what is it with Starks and soulmates?  Nothing works out right, does it?”

“I wouldn’t know about that,” says Gendry quietly.  “But yours seems to be ok—even if you can’t see his face.”

“He can see mine,” Arya mutters.  “Told me so.” She turns her attention back to the television, watching as Blount strikes out again.

“Well, that’s good, isn’t it?”  Gendry’s trying to sound cheerful, she can tell.  He sounds all forcefully jovial.

“Except that it means I’m broken, doesn’t it?  I don’t want to see his face or something—like I’m scared to.  Isn’t that what they say in Dream Psych?”

“Have you taken Dream Psych?” Gendry asks dryly.

“No.  I’ve told you, I took Human Emotion.”

“Ahh—learned how to be a proper human, then.”

“Oh shut up.”

“There are all sorts of reasons you might not be able to see his face,” Gendry says.  “Could be on your end.  Could be on his.  It’ll happen when it happens.  And for whatever reason.  There’s nothing broken about it, or you, or him.  It’s just not lining up properly.”

“Why not, though?” Arya says.

“Because then there’d be no fun involved and who even wants an easy life anyway.  Look—” he pokes her, and she looks at him, “Soulmates are supposed to be more trouble than they’re worth—right?  Isn’t that what you always say?  Isn’t it kind of a good thing, then, that yours is proving a proper challenge?  Or are you all talk?”

She doesn’t know how to respond, so she sticks her tongue out at him.  His eyes drop to it and he grins.

* * *

Jack and Luke host a party that night at their house, and everyone from the team’s going, and Arya puts on a shiny top with a low back that makes it clear she’s not wearing a bra before letting Beth know not to wait up.   Beth is knitting and watching  _Winter Winds_ , and just waves her away. They’ve figured out their routine in the years they’ve been rooming together. 

Everyone is completely smashed by the time Arya gets there, Elia and Lyanna are entwined on the couch, Anguy and Lem have set up a pong table in the back yard and she hears shouts and laughter as they aim their ping-pong balls at the red plastic cups full of beer. Arya arrives later than she would have liked—it’s always hard to tell whether Jack’s and Luke’s parties are going to be the sort that get started right at nine, or the sort that don’t really get fun until two in the morning.  Tonight seems to be one of the former, and she drifts through the house, pushing through crowds of people from the rowing team, or rugby, loud and drunk already, trying to locate Ned or Gendry or Shireen.  Instead, she finds Sansa.

She shouldn’t be surprised that Sansa’s here.  Shouldn’t be surprised at all.  It’s not like she hasn’t been at Harrenhal the whole year, but somehow it’s still jarring for her to be there.  And Arya’s not sure she likes it. 

“Hello you,” Sansa smiles down at her.  Arya’s wearing heels and Sansa is _still_ taller than her, her auburn hair falling in waves over her shoulders.  She’d had it cut recently and it stops just above her breasts.

“I like the haircut,” Arya says grinning.

“I think it’s the first time ever it’s been shorter than yours,” Sansa says, reaching over and tugging Arya’s pony tail.  Arya flinches in an exaggerated way and Sansa is quick to apologize.

“Sorry—I’m a little,” she waves her plastic cup, “and don’t know my strength.”

“Right,” Arya says dryly.

“I like this top,” Sansa says.  “Very sexy.”

“That was rather the point.”

“Are you aiming for a boy?” Sansa asks quickly, excitedly, and Arya wonders if she’s looking for distraction.  Ned’s not nearby at all.

“I wasn’t really, no. I just like reminding everyone that I’ve got a lovely back,” she shrugs.

“I could never get away with going bra-less,” Sansa says enviously.

Arya gives a pointed glance to Sansa’s chest.  She has some of the nicest breasts Arya’s ever seen—nicer even than Elia’s. “I suppose the grass is always greener,” she says shrugging.  Her breasts are so small she doesn’t even bother with bras most days. Waste of money. She owns sports bras because if she’s moving fast she feels uncomfortable, but for everything else…Sometimes she wishes that she had breasts like Sansa’s—the sort that everyone stares at, even though they know they’re not supposed to.  She always feels silly thinking this, though.  Silly, because she’s the athletic one—isn’t she supposed to not want to look pretty and dress up and maybe find someone who’ll stare at her tits like they’re the gods’ gift to mankind?  She’s not supposed to want that, right?

It puts her head in circles and she wants alcohol.  But she hasn’t made her way to the kitchen yet, so she plucks Sansa’s cup from her hands and takes a sip before nearly gagging.

“Why did you put this much grenadine in it?” she demands.

“I like grenadine,” says Sansa.

“Eugh.  I’m going to get my own.”  She turns around and marches to the kitchen table on which she finds Jack’s and Luke’s collection of alcohol, and pours some tequila into a plastic cup for a shot, looking around for a lime and some salt.

She’s just located the lime when Gendry appears next to her. Or over her, more, because even in her heels he’s still taller than her by a mile. He doesn’t say anything as she moves about the kitchen, just leans against the sink and watches her.

“And here I was hoping you’d help me be the sober one at the party,” he sighs dramatically as she sets the lime on the table and marches over to the cabinet.  Luke’s a foodie, and she has a feeling that they keep their cooking salt away from the party-goers.

“Sorry about that,” she sighs, locating a container of kosher salt and pouring some into her palm. “You’re on your own tonight.”

“Yeah.   Figured that would probably be the case.”

“Next time I’ll keep you company.  I just…” she thinks of Sansa and her perfect breasts and licks her wrist, tipping some salt on it.  “Not tonight.”

“You’re not drinking to escape stuff, are you?” Gendry asks pointedly.  She smiles at him.  He doesn’t drink anymore, except the odd beer every now and then because a single beer won’t get him drunk.  He doesn’t talk about why very often, but Arya can guess. Usually people only have the one reason for not drinking.

“Nah.  Just blowing off steam,” she replies. “AQ is kicking my ass, and Bran’s having trouble with a girl.”  She licks the salt and throws the tequila into her mouth, popping the lime between her teeth and squeezing the juice onto her tongue as Gendry asks,

“His soulmate’s sister?”

“That’s the one.”

“Does she have her own soulmate?”

“Apparently.”

“Lucky Bran.”

“Lucky Bran,” Arya agrees. Then, because she’s not quite swaying enough, and she’s got some salt left, she licks her wrist again and deposits it in place, pouring herself another shot of tequila.

“How much steam are you blowing off?” Gendry asks.  He’s trying not to sound judgy—she knows he is.  It’s odd—he only ever really gets annoyed when she drinks to excess. He doesn’t give a shit when it’s anyone else.  Maybe because she’s small and he’s worried she doesn’t know her own tolerance.  More likely it’s just that protective thing he’s done since they first met her freshman year.  She likes it—that he’s protective of her.  It’s not overbearing to her.  It might be, if he wasn’t so determined not to let himself be, but he is so it’s not.  She smiles at him, and raises her wrist to her lips again.

“Enough,” she replies, and she takes the shot.  Gendry’s lips twitch.

“AQ that bad, then?”

“Fuck can we not talk about it?”  She moans as she puts the lime between her lips, and the smile breaks across Gendry’s face. “What?  You like my pain?” she demands, keeping the lime in her mouth this time.  It’s got less juice after this shot and she wants as much flavor as she can get.

“Nah—you just look funny with that lime between your lips.”  She rolls her eyes, and he laughs.  It’s not his warmest laugh, though—she can tell even through the sting of tequila in her mouth and she narrows her eyes.

“You all right that I’m drinking?” she asks.

“I’ll get over it,” he replies.  “My issue—not yours. Do what you like.” But he’s hunched over now, and she knows what that hunch means—it means he’s uncomfortable, and the question bubbles to her lips before she can stop it.

“When did you stop?” His eyes widen at her, and she realizes that she’s never asked. Not once.  Berated him for drinking beer even though he doesn’t get drunk from it—yes, and made sure he never touches hard liquor at a party for all her teasing—absolutely, but ask him why he stopped? She never has.

“Freshman year,” he says, “just before you got here.  Just…yeah.”  He jerks his head slightly and she can tell he doesn’t want to talk about it. She isn’t surprised.  Not at all, and she feels silly for having asked the question at all.

“Well,” she says and goes over to him, and damn it she’s swaying—she wouldn’t be swaying if she were wearing sneakers, why is she wearing these damn heels anyway, “It’s brave of you being here then.  Being at any of these.” She hugs him. It’s a quick hug, a friendly one, but she still feels the way his hand rises up to the small of her back, hot against her skin as she does.  When she pulls away, he’s looking down at her, and there’s a softness around his eyes she’s not used to.

“Thanks. It means a lot, coming from you?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she demands.

He shrugs. “You’ve just got a…well, it just means a lot, all right?”  Is he blushing?  He can’t be. It must just be hot in here. It is hot in here. She’s glad her top doesn’t have a back—at least she gets a breeze that way.

“Thanks,” she says, and because she doesn’t really know what else to do, pours herself another shot of tequila and takes it, sticking another lime square in her mouth and sucking the juice down.

They wander through the party after that.  They play a round of pong against Lem and Tom, who squabble like an old married couple. Arya drinks all of the beer that Gendry won’t touch.

“You shouldn’t be drinking all of that, Arya.”

“I’ll be fine,” she says, drinking down a cup full and making a face.  “Blerg.  Ugh this is shite.”

“You could not drink it,” Gendry says.  “I’m not.”

“You’re not because you don’t drink more than one beer.”

“I also have too much self respect to put Rowan Ribbon anywhere near my lips, thank you very much. And, frankly, I’m disappointed you would.”

“Snob.”

“Oh please, like I’m a snob.”

“You are,” she snaps, “You’re a bigger snob than I am, that’s for sure.”

Gendry laughs in astonishment and turns away from her and lands a ping pong ball in Lem’s cup, and smirks at Lem’s muttered complaint that it’s not _fair_ if Gendry isn’t even drinking. 

They finish the round, then play another, and by the end of two games, the ground definitely isn’t flat anymore, and the sky is lopsided and Gendry grabs her by the elbow and frog-marches her into the kitchen where he shoves a huge glass of water into her hand.

“Thank you,” she slurs at him.

“Drink your water,” he commands and she does.  It tastes very bland after the beer—or maybe less bland than the beer.  Rowan Ribbon is cheap fucking shit, so she can’t quite tell.  One of them definitely is more bland, and she’d ask Gendry, but he’d call her stupid for asking, so she doesn’t.  She just keeps drinking the water.

When she finishes the glass, he fills it again and hands her another one.  “I’m going to pee all over the floor if you keep giving me water after all the beer and tequila,” she says.

“Well, if you need to pee, there’s a perfectly good toilet through there,” he says, pointing. “Do you need to?”

She considers for a moment, then nods, and stumbles across the kitchen, Gendry trailing after her.

“I can pee on my own, thank you,” she tells him when she reaches the bathroom.

“I am well aware. Just making sure you didn’t fall and break your nose in those shoes.”

“That’s kind of you,” she says.  She closes the door in his face, fiddles with her jeans, and sits down.  “How’s life?”

“Really?” Gendry snorts, his voice muffled through the door.  “You’re asking this while peeing?  And not while we were…you know…doing other things?”

“Well, it didn’t occur to me to ask then.  Answer the question.”

“Life’s fine.”

“That’s good.”

“I’m talking to recruiters.” Even through the door, and the drunken haze of her brain, she can tell that his voice sounds edgy.

“Recruiters?” Arya says, blankly.

“For the national leagues. For playing professionally.” She wishes she could see his face. This is just like talking to her soulmate, oddly enough.  Even their voices sort of sound the same.  But that’s stupid.  Voices sound similar all the time.  Robb sounds like dad when he calls and she gets them confused if she doesn’t look at the name sometimes.  So Gendry sounds like her soulmate.  Big deal.

All the same, she doesn’t have to rely only on his voice.  She can see his face because it’s not a dream, so she when she’s finished peeing, and flushing, and pulling her pants back up, she opens the door and smiles up at him.

“I’m sure you’ll get chosen.  You’re too good not to!”  His face almost seems to brighten as she says it and she’s never noticed the way his eyes crinkle when he smiles.  She reaches up and gives him another hug and she likes that feeling of her breasts pressing against his chest, and she remembers the excitement of Sansa’s “Are you aiming for a boy?”  She could pull with Gendry.  She definitely could. Gods know he’s got a good body, but they’re friends, and he’s got his own soulmate somewhere. And besides, she’s definitely not sober and shouldn’t be allowed to make decisions like that. 

“How would you know? You’ve never seen me play?” he asks, a crooked smile playing at his lips.  She’s never really noticed how red his lips are, but they are. Very red.  She’s drunk.  And just because she’s drunk does not give her a good reason to think like this.

“I just do, all right? How could you not be?”

He opens his mouth to speak but a drunken, slurred voice cuts him off.

“Look—if you don’t want to be here, go then.  I’ll keep having fun with my friends and you can go to sleep.”  Arya whirls around.  It’s Ned, and she can see from the color in his cheeks and the glaze on his eyes that he’s very drunk.

“No—I want to be here. I want to be with you,” Sansa says quietly, reaching for his hands.  “I just…”

“Just what?” he demands. Arya’s never once heard Ned speaking this way to Sansa—not once, and it sounds almost like Joffrey, and she could kill him because he knows better than that. She will kill him, actually, so she pushes past Gendry towards her sister.

“I—” Sansa’s face compresses and she looks about to cry.

“Ned,” Gendry interrupts, his arms crossed over his chest.  She hadn’t realized that he’d followed her, but she’s not surprised. He’s been with her all night, and she’s glad of that right now, glad he’s there with her.  She knows nothing will go wrong if Gendry’s there.

“Oh piss off, mate, this has nothing to do with you,” Ned says, glaring at him, and Arya opens her mouth to tell _him_ to piss off, but Gendry speaks before she even has the chance to, his voice low, urgent.

“Ned, don’t say things you’ll regret in the morning.  This isn’t like you.” He sounds so stern and Ned turns to face him, opens his mouth to give him a piece of his mind, then thinks the better of it. And then, his face crumples, and he sinks down to the linoleum of the kitchen floor and starts to cry. Gendry’s eyes widen in astonishment, but Sansa steps around Arya and crouches down next to Ned, wrapping her arms around him and whispering, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry—I know,” as he turns his head into the crook of her neck and clutches at her like she’s the source of life.  Arya’s sure it’s the alcohol that makes her wonder if her soulmate would ever cling to her like that.

“I miss you,” he says. “I’m sorry.  This was—I’m shit.  I shouldn’t do this.  I’m making it worse for both of us.  Fuck I’m an asshole.  Fuck.  Sansa.” And they’re both trembling, sitting there on the floor and trembling, and Gendry grabs Arya’s arm and whispers, “Let’s give them space, shall we?”

She stares at them for a moment, curled up on the floor and crying together, everything in a thousand knots that they couldn’t quite untie, and then follows Gendry onto the back porch.

Merrit is playing Puddingfoot and neither of them look even close to sober, and Gendry sighs.

“That—back there—is why I don’t drink anymore.”

“What?” Arya asks.

“There are a lot of things I don’t like about Ned, but I’ll say this for him, he’s not one to treat Sansa badly.  He’s careful about that.  And he knows what the situation is, and it’s shitty, and he tries to handle it well. And I commend him for that—I do.”

Arya looks back into the kitchen.  Sansa and Ned are still on the floor, but Ned’s stopped crying now, but he still looks thoroughly miserable.

Gendry continues. “Like that—if they can’t sort that out—that’s going to turn into emotional abuse really fast, if that moment doesn’t constitute it already, and Ned doesn’t want that, and my understanding is that Sansa’s had enough of that in her life.”

“Sandor was what got her through Joffrey,” Arya says sadly.  “I don’t know if she’s ever told Ned that, though.  How do you tell your soulmate stuff like that? Like ‘hello darling soulmate whom I love dearly.  I love you, but here’s my other soulmate and they mean something completely different. I still love you, but I also love him.’”

Gendry grimaces. “Yeah—not fun. I don’t envy her that. It’s a shit situation.”  He frowns. “And honestly, if my soulmate had a second soulmate, I don’t know what I’d do.”

Arya thinks of the baseball field in her dreams, and the way her soulmate swivels his hips when he’s lining up at bat, and wonders what she’d do if the nights she didn’t dream with him were nights when he was off dreaming with someone else. Maybe that other someone could see his face.  Maybe he’d like her more, be more open with her.  Maybe they were more than just baseball.

“Yeah,” she mutters sadly. “Yeah.”  She looks away, out at the pong table. Dick’s playing Cynthea now. “Sometimes I think soulmates just fuck everything up, you know?  Like, Bran’s screwed up over his, Sansa’s screwed up over hers, dad cheated on mom even though she’s his soulmate, Robb broke Roslin’s heart because he found Jeyne…like—I don’t know.  I guess I’m not in a hurry to find mine in the real world.  The real world is messy.  Dreams aren’t.”

“I—I guess that’s fair,” he says.  He leans against the porch railing and looks in at the house.  Arya follows his gaze.  Sansa and Ned are both smiling now, and he’s running his hands through her hair. “You’ve never been in love though, have you?”

She snaps her head towards him—there’s something strange about his tone and she doesn’t quite understand it, and the softness in his eyes from earlier is gone, replaced with something else.

“No.  No, I don’t want to.  I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

Gendry nods slowly. “So you’re waiting for him?”

“No—I just…I don’t want to hurt anyone.”  She looks back at Sansa and Ned.  Sansa’s standing and she’s pulling Ned to his feet, and together they cross to the porch.

“Arya, can I crash at yours tonight?” Sansa asks purposefully.  Arya glances at Ned who nods, looking equally determined.

“Sure,” Arya says. “I’ll see you later,” she says to Gendry. 

“You sober enough to walk?” he asks.

“I’ve got her,” says Sansa. “If she’s not,” she adds quickly.

Arya rolls her eyes pointedly at both of them.  “I’ll be fine.”

“Catch tomorrow?” Gendry suggests as she is turning away.

“Sure thing,” she smiles, and she and Sansa head out.

“Things all right?” she asks when they reach the street.

“Yeah—I think so,” Sansa says.  “He’s…he’s just been sitting on a lot of things because he doesn’t want to upset me. And that…yeah.”

“So you coming with me tonight—”

“It was his idea,” Sansa says.  “He thinks given how shitfaced he is right now I should go somewhere else in case he’s stupid again.”

“Sansa,” Arya begins, but she doesn’t know what to say.

“Look—I know what you’re thinking.  I know what everyone’s thinking.  But I’ll say this for Sandor—I know how to deal with drunk, crying men who consider me a balm for their aches and pains.”  She lets out a bitter laugh.  “Oh boy, do I know how to deal with that.  Ned’s just low, all right?  And he’ll make it up to me when he’s not.  This,” she waves a hand back in the direction of the house, “This isn’t Ned.  This is me.” She looks suddenly sad.

“It’s not you if it’s not your fault,” Arya says.  “Don’t go blaming yourself for—”

“I’m not blaming myself,” Sansa says quickly.  “I’m stating a fact.  Ned’s confused because I am.  If I weren’t—”

“Sansa,” says Arya, alarmed.  “Sansa do you hear yourself?  Do you know what it sounds like you’re saying?”  Does Sansa know how much she’s lying to herself right now?  Sansa’s always been a liar, but this—this is a whole new brand of it.  Usually her lies are…are not like this.  They’re like when she didn’t tell people that Arya was only defending Mycah, and that she _hadn’t_ started that fight that had landed her a suspension.  Sansa “hadn’t seen” when she _had_ Arya _knew it_ , but she’d lied. And now she’s lying again, and trying to make Arya believe it.  And Arya feels sick because she didn’t think she _could_ hate Sansa lying more than she already did but this—this is worse, because this doesn’t hurt someone else, it hurts herself.

Sansa looks at her and for the first time in what feels like years, she sees how scared Sansa looks.

“What am I supposed to do?” she asks and her eyes are bright and tears are streaming down her face. “What am I supposed to do?”

* * *

In her life, she’s never wanted more than to go to the baseball field in her dreams and throw pitches at her soulmate, and maybe just maybe go over and hug him—not the way she’d hugged Gendry, quick and friendly—but the sort of hug that would crush ribs if they weren’t in a dream.  And if he’s not there, then she can pitch against a wall until her arms and legs hurt.

But as she slips to sleep, she doesn’t go to the baseball field.  She’s lying on a bed next to Gendry and they’re only in their underwear and he doesn’t even say a word he just kisses her, his hand at the small of her back and the hair of his chest rubbing against her breasts. He moans into her mouth and she reaches up and runs her fingers through his hair, pulling herself closer to him, rolling him over so she feels the weight of him pressing down on her as they rock their hips against one another and it feels so remarkably good, so remarkably right, and her heart is pounding in her throat and every single desire to be playing baseball with her soulmate evaporates as Gendry’s hand comes between her legs and she clutches at him.


	3. Chapter 3

She wakes feeling wholly disoriented to the sound of Beth getting up early for breakfast, and it takes Arya a second to realize where she is and what day it is while the memory of her dream comes flooding back into her.  Because, gods, he’d kissed her so thoroughly she’d thought she would die from it, and his hands skating over the skin of her thighs, fingers rubbing her nipples while his groin rubbed against hers…

She’d never had a sexy dream before.  Not once. Obella said they were fun, especially with soulmates, but she and her soulmate had never had a sexy dream. What was she doing having a sexy dream about…she flushes.  She doesn’t want to think about him at all, doesn’t in the slightest, because if she even thinks his name, she’ll think of his muscles, how good his ass felt in her hands as she’d held him, how his stomach rippled and his arms bulged as he held himself over her and…

Fuck, she wouldn’t be able to look Gendry in the face at _all_ , would she?  She groans and buries her face in her pillow.  And what would she say to her soulmate?  Sorry—I can’t see your face, but I’ve been having sex dreams about my best friend lately, so…sorry? She groans again.

“You ok there?” Sansa asks from where she’s curled up on some cushions on the floor, looking at Arya through a hooded eye.

“Just a dream,” Arya says.

“What about?”

But she just shakes her head because she can’t say it aloud, especially not to Sansa. If she says it aloud, it’s real. Instead, she asks. “Did you sleep ok?”

Sansa nods. “I dreamed with Ned.” She sounds relieved and Arya feels a flicker of annoyance.

“How was that?” she asks carefully. 

“It was good. We were by the sea down south, and he showed me around where he and his aunt used to play rock kings.”

“Rock kings?”

Sansa smiles and shrugs. “I have no idea.”

“How was he?” Arya asks.

Sansa frowns slightly. “He’s still angry. He’s upset.  It’s…I don’t know.  I don’t think there’s anything I can do about it.” She’s blinking furiously, and she looks close to tears.  “Except to keep on…I don’t know.  I can’t pick who I dream with.  If I could, it would be easy and I could divide my time between them and make it so they neither of them feel neglected.  But I can’t.  I don’t know how to do that.  And Sandor…he had a lot of trouble last week, and he needed me.  But…if I said…gods.  Jealousy isn’t supposed to happen.  It isn’t fair.”  She’s really crying now, great streams of water pouring down her face, and Arya wants to go to her, but sometimes Sansa doesn’t like it when she goes in for a hug when she’s distressed, sometimes Sansa shoves her away. So she clutches her knees instead and watches Sansa closely.

“And gods—It’s not like I can break up with either of them,” Sansa says, and she reaches for Arya’s desk and a box of tissues.  “I mean, what good does that do?  When they’re there when I sleep.  And Sandor’s jealous that Ned and I live together, and Ned’s jealous that I’ve dreamed with Sandor for longer and what am I supposed to do?  I can’t just…I can’t just sit them down and make them work out an amicable solution.”

“Can’t you though?” Arya asks.  Sansa stiffens.

“What?  No.  No I can’t.  I can only dream with one of them at a time.”

“My soulmate,” Arya begins, then she blushes because gods, she’d wanted to dream with him last night—maybe he’d been out.  Sometimes they don’t dream together on weekends, but that had just meant she’d dreamt of Gendry and his hands and fuck, “My soulmate says that we each pick settings, and that—I don’t know.  Maybe you could figure out a way to get both of them in a dream together and…I don’t know. Make them figure something out.  Because it’s ripping you apart, and they neither of them want that—I’m sure. They just need to grow up and stop being babies and…I don’t know.  Maybe this is all stupid.”

Sansa is frowning still, and dabbing at her eyes with the tissues, but her eyes are thoughtful. “Is that something he got from Dream Psych?  Your soulmate?”

“Yeah,” says Arya, scrunching her forehead and trying to remember the dream.  “I think so?”

Sansa looks thoughtful. “Then maybe I can talk about it with a counselor.  See if…I don’t know.”

“I think we’ve established that we neither of us know,” says Arya.  Sansa rolls her eyes at her. 

“Trust you to come up with something I never would have dreamed of,” Sansa sighs.

“That’s what I’m here for. You’ve always been shit at thinking outside the box.”

“Hey!” says Sansa, throwing a pillow at Arya.  Arya blows her a kiss then burrows back down into her bed, pretending to go back to sleep.

* * *

They host Storm’s End the following weekend, and they lose spectacularly.  Storm’s End is at the top of the league and has been for years, and even listening to their chants of “Ours is the Fury!  Ours is the Fury!  Ours is the Fury!” makes Arya want to gag. 

The boys pull an upset and win though.  Arya can tell they’re winning because their field is full of chants of “Spooky spooky ow!  Spooky spooky ow!” and she grins, imagining Gendry and Ned and Jack and the rest jumping around and shouting support for their teammates on base.   

Joy is not pleased that they lost. Not at all.  And she stares at rankings while the rest of them shower and change, calculating and recalculating exactly how many games they’ll have to win or lose to make the league playoffs.  

“We have eight games left before playoffs,” Joy announces at the next practice.  “Four here, four away.  And I know you all have put in a good season so far—we’ve done pretty well, all things considered.”  She does not bring up her sprained knee that kept her off the field for a game, or the loss they just suffered.  “And I know we’re going to place.  I know it.  We need to win seven of the eight, and I know we can do it.  We’re tied right now with both LannisU and White Harbor.  Casterly Rock put in a good start to the season but has slowly been dropping in the ranks, and Winterfell is…” she glances at Arya who keeps her face as neutral as possible, “Winterfell is Winterfell,” Joy continues diplomatically.  “So, let’s do this thing, all right?  Let’s win these games and get to nationals.  We can do it this year, I can feel it.” 

“They say that every year,” sighs Elia as Arya walks with her and Lyanna towards central campus.  “We still haven’t gotten there.” 

“I mean, she can’t very well say that she doesn’t think we can, can she?” points out Lyanna.  “Even if it’s true.  LannisU is  _really_  good this year.  I do not look forward to playing them. 

“Thanks,” Arya says dryly. 

“Are you pitching at Lannisport?” Lyanna asks. 

“Yes.” 

“Oh.  Good luck, then.” 

Arya snorts.   

“Do you think we can make it?” she asks after a brief moment of silence.  Lyanna is older than she is, and it’s her last year.  

Lyanna looks up at the sky, considering.  “Well…we could.  I’m not counting on it, but we could.  No one’s expecting us to—not even Joy.  So…I don’t know.  It’s not like Harrenhal has placed in fifteen years or anything, so if we break that streak it’s a good thing.”   

When Arya turns away from them and heads back to her dorm, she decides that they’re going to win.  They’re going to.  She’s going to make them. 

* * *

“You look grumpy today,” she says as he throws the ball at her, his arm making a graceful arc over his shoulder. He’s slouching, for one—always a bad sign—and his eyebrows are drawn together in one dark line. And, to really put the cherry on top, his frown isn’t a passive, neutral one at all.  The corners of his mouth are actively drawn down towards his chin.

“According to you, I always look grumpy,” Gendry responds grumpily, his frown deepening. 

“Yeah, well, you look particularly grumpy today,” she says lightly, and the ball goes back to him.  He doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t throw the ball back to her.  He pops it back and forth from his hand to his glove, staring at them as though afraid that if he misses one of the catches, the world will fall apart.  Then he flicks the ball to her, and she starts forward to catch it. 

“Just things on my mind,” he says. 

“Really,” she mutters.  “I hadn’t noticed.” 

“Look, you’re not privy to every tiny detail that goes on in my head, ok?” he snaps, blushing slightly. 

“Yeah—and you’re not to mine either.  But we’re friends, Gendry.” 

“Do friends have to tell each other everything?” he demands.  His words sting and she feels her arms drop to her sides as though they are made of lead.   

“No,” she says at last.  “No they don’t.”  She passes the ball back to him, then turns around and marches towards the tree where she’d ditched her bag and swings it over her shoulder.  She doesn’t say goodbye.  She doesn’t have to.  Her tone does.   

She’s not sure why it hurts so much, Gendry not telling her.  It’s not like he’s her soulmate or anything, but still, she’s come to expect him telling her whatever goes on in his mind.  It’s usually not much, but if she asks, he tells.  He’s honest with her, and that’s how she likes it.  So whatever it is that’s making him…he’s just being stupid.  Gendry’s always stupid.  Everyone knows that.   

 _I’d better not fucking dream of him tonight_ , she thinks to herself.   _I’d better see my soulmate._   Something simple, uncomplicated.   

That makes her frown even more.  Her soulmate is uncomplicated—that much is true.  They get on well, but she…she still can’t see his face, couldn’t even guess what color his eyes are.  And that, in itself makes him more complicated than he should be.  In comparison, Gendry is the easiest thing in the world. Gendry is her friend.  Gendry is supposed to be the one who is straightforward and exactly what she expects and now… Since when is her soulmate less complicated than Gendry?

She’d just had to go and dream of him.  It was probably the tequila and Sansa being upset and making her wish she had someone to hold in her arms and hugging him and feeling the way his chest pressed against her breasts.  She wished for that sometimes.  Not…not anyone concrete, not like Gendry, but… 

She wonders what would happen if she hugged her soulmate in her dreams, if she held him close to her, and pulled his blurry face down to kiss her.  She’d probably miss his lips and embarrass herself.  It’s not a thought that improves anything. 

* * *

She throws the ball and it whizzes past him on the first pitch. 

“You didn’t even swing,” she shouts at him.  

“Yeah—sorry,” he shakes himself, picks up the ball, and knocks it back to her.  She pitches again and he knocks it so far it’ll probably be in Astapor before it lands.  He begins walking around the bases. 

“What’s on your mind?” she asks. 

“How do you know something’s on my mind?”   

“Call me a psychic,” she says dryly. 

“You…you still can’t see my face here, can you?” he asks. 

“No,” she says and she feels a shiver run up her spine.   

“Thought not.” 

“Look I…I don’t know why and—“ 

“I didn’t mean to get in your face about it,” he says quickly.  “I…never mind.” 

“Never mind what?” 

“Just never mind, all right?” 

“What, do you think it’s because I don’t want to?” she demands.  “Or because I’m afraid to?” 

“I don’t know why it might be,” he says slowly.  “I just…I just thought maybe it’d changed.  We haven’t dreamed together in a while and…yeah.” 

They hadn’t dreamed together since before the weekend, before she’d dreamed of Gendry and his lips and his hands.  She blushes and lookes down at the mound, kicking at the dirt with her cleats.  “No,” she says.  “Nothing’s changed.”  Her voice sounds hollow to her own ears.  “Nothing at all.” 

* * *

Even if Gendry is still being surly, they sit together on the train out west to Lannisport the following day, and somewhere between Harrenhal and Riverrun, his frown gets so deep that she seriously considers going and finding Elia and Lyanna because even the ridiculously public way they curl around one another is more bearable than Gendry staring out the window and pointedly ignoring her.   

“Trouble in paradise?” asks Tom as he passes them on his way to the diner car.  Arya starts, and stares up at Tom with wide eyes and it takes her a moment to realize he’s just talking about how Gendry’s got his back to her and not that she’s…no—none of them would know she’d had that kind of a dream about Gendry.

“Shut up, Tom,” growls Gendry.   

“He’s just being pissy for no reason,” Arya says. 

“It’s not no reason,” Gendry snaps, whipping around to glare at her. 

“It is,” she retorts. 

“Is not.” 

“What is it, then?” she demands.  He opens his mouth, but no sound comes out.  “See?  Nothing.  No reason.” 

“That’s false logic.  Just because you don’t have the evidence doesn’t mean it’s not true.” 

“Yeah, and just because you aren’t telling me doesn’t mean it’s a good reason.” 

“A good reason and a reason are two completely different thing.”  His eyes are so bright, so blue, so fierce and Arya feels her pulse rising because the last time he’d—no—that hadn’t been him.  That had been a dream, and he’d looked at her that intensely because his fingers were on her clit and she was calling out his name. 

“I think,” Tom says slowly, “That I’m right actually, and that there’s trouble in paradise.”  And he extracts himself quickly, muttering to himself under his breath about things that Arya can’t hear. 

“If you’d just tell me—” she tries, but Gendry turns away from her. 

“Leave it, Arya.” 

“I don’t shut you out when big things are happening,” she snaps at him. 

“Oh yeah?” She’s never heard him sound so bitter and angry—not with her, not ever and it hurts even worse than when they’d been playing catch. 

“Yeah,” she says as emphatically as she can. 

He doesn’t say anything at all—he just shrugs and ignores her and she glares at his back, wishing she didn’t think about what it looked like without the t-shirt.  She gets to her feet, stretching and easing out of the seat. 

“Where are you going?” he asks. 

“Well, if you’re going to be a dickhead, I don’t see any reason to stick around,” and she goes and makes her way down the carriage, as far away as she can get and still be in the same car as the rest of the team, curling up into a ball and staring out the window. 

She makes her way up the train, and finds Jack and Dick in the aisle near Myrcella and Shireen, the four of them chatting happily.

“You know, it wouldn’t be so bad if the whole fucking rowing team didn’t destroy the house,” Shireen sighs. “But that’s what I get, I guess, living with Devan.”

“Couldn’t you ‘honey, take your friends elsewhere’ him?” Dick teases, and Myrcella’s face breaks into a grin even as Shireen rolls her eyes. 

“You try telling Devan not to do something—it’s ridiculous.  He gets these horrible puppy-dog eyes that he learned because he’s on the young end of seven children.  It’s irresistible.  Honestly, I should just tell him…I don’t know…”

“That you hate his friends?” Myrcella suggests, and the boys laugh.

“I don’t hate his friends, I just don’t want them in my house.  I just can’t think of a lie good enough for it.”

Arya grits her teeth for a moment, and it isn’t until Dick says, “You could tell him you fancy one of his teammates and then see what he does,” before she says loudly,

“You shouldn’t lie, Shireen—especially not to your soulmate.”

The four of them turn to her, and Jack’s jaw drops slightly.  Good.  She wants them to stare at her.  She wants them to listen.  She wonders if any of them have ever thought at all about what a lie can do, what harm it can cause. Sometimes lies are for the better—but they can create such a horrible knot of dishonesty and pain and cruelty, and Arya should know.  Sansa had lied all the time growing up, and it had only ever ended in tears for the both of them.

“It’s not a—“

“You’re planning on lying to him?”

Shireen rolls her eyes. “Look, it’s not like that—stay out of it, will you?”

“Don’t be a liar. You’re better than that,” Arya snaps and she continues down the train until she finds an empty seat near the front of the car, well away from everyone. 

She stews for a good long while, hoping that Shireen won’t lie to Devan because then she’ll have to really get mad at Shireen, and wondering why Gendry is being stupid. She is surprised Gendry comes and sits next to her.  “Oh piss off,” she mutters to him, doing what he did and turning to stare out the window.  That’s how she realizes she’s drifted off to sleep, because the grass is a bizarre burgundy color, and there are mountains falling out of the sky.  Slowly, she turns to look at Gendry and he’s not wearing anything at all, not even underwear and gods, his cock can’t really be that big, can it?  Surely that’s part of the dream.  He wraps his arms around her and pulls her onto his lap, kissing her ear and whispering, “I’m sorry.” 

“Don’t do that,” she mumbles into his neck. 

“Do what?” he asks. 

“That.” 

“That’s helpful,” he says dryly, but his arms tighten around her and his fingers are tracing circles into her back through her sweatshirt and she sighs and closes her eyes and sinks into the smell of his pine deodorant and the softness of his skin and the warmth of his hands as they dip under the waistband of her jeans to cup her ass and she moans a little into his neck. 

* * *

When they get off the train in Lannisport, Arya is more than a little confused and a lot horny, because in her dream, Gendry had gotten her fully undressed and had just crouched between her legs and was kissing his way up her thighs when Weasel had come by and asked her for advice on her fastball.  Arya had hardly been able to think straight, but she also felt bad just shaking Weasel off and had spent the next two hours talking about softball and thinking about Gendry and his hands and his lips and fuck. 

She knows the coaches are hoping that they’ll hole up in their rooms and watch tv or sleep or whatever since they have two games over the weekend, and Arya feels a little guilty when she tells Syrio that she doesn’t know how she’s going to spend the evening, because she does know how she’s going to spend the evening.

Myrcella’s from the area, and she has already convinced half the team to go out to a good Myrish restaurant that her mother used to take her to a lot growing up, and then they’re going to go clubbing because Harrenhal isn’t even a little bit close to good clubs.  There’s only the one shitty one that’s too run down to be really fun because you’re always scared the ceiling’s going to fall on your head.   

Arya puts on the highest heels she owns and wears the shortest skirt she can find and a tank top because it’s warm by the seas, whatever these southerners say. She looks hot—she really does. Not the way that Sansa does, some sort of classic beauty that should be painted or worshipped—she looks like she could push you up against a wall and fuck you senseless and tonight—that’s what she wants.  She wants that attention, she wants strangers to stare at her and think she’s the most incredible person they’ve ever seen and it wouldn’t hurt if she took Gendry by surprise too, especially after that fucking dream and the way his eyes had gone dark when he’d sunk down between her legs.  Looping her arms through Myrcella’s and Weasel’s, they strut into downtown Lannisport, laughing amongst themselves happily whenever someone’s eyes follow them.   

She doesn’t let herself drink over dinner, and won’t for the rest of the night.  She’s pitching tomorrow against Lannisport and, after the trip out, if she drinks she’ll drink herself down the drain, so she sticks to water while Myrcella’s face gets redder and redder.  She ignores most of the table, though.  Gendry’s down at the other end, and he’s not looking surly—and that almost makes Arya angry, because what the fuck’s his problem, anyway?  

He barely looks at her—barely looks at her through dinner, and through their walk half a mile to the club that Myrcella suggests by the harbor. He just jokes around with Lem, or Jack, and doesn’t seem to notice her short skirt at all, and it takes her a moment to remember that of course he wouldn’t.  They’re just friends, and it was just a dream.  He probably thinks she’s just blowing off steam again, hoping to drag some local into the circle the two teams make on the dance floor. And she is.  Isn’t she?

And now, she can’t even look at him, even though they’re dancing across from one another, but she also can’t look away from him either because what if he started dancing with someone else—Obella, or some girl from Lannisport or— 

Is she jealous?  Her—is she jealous? 

She stops moving all at once, and suddenly it’s much too hot, and everyone dancing around them is only making it hotter as they throw their body heat into the room.  Everything is dark, and close, and what does she have to be jealous of?  She has her soulmate.  Gendry can do what he likes, when he likes, how he likes, and if he doesn’t care what she thinks…well, what does that matter?  When she has her soulmate. 

But she is jealous.  Jealous because right now, all she wants to do is cross the circle and wrap her arms around him and grind her hips against his until her tiny skirt rides up and he either has to reach and tug it down—or not—and she _can’t_ because they’re friends. Just friends, and he has his own soulmate who he’d have to go and explain this all too afterwards and that’s not fair—to make him do that.  He never talks about his soulmate, but he just doesn’t talk about things sometimes—that’s how he is. 

He probably talks to her—the one he dreams with.  She probably knows everything there is to know about him.  She probably knows more than Arya ever could, knows about his mum, and why he hates his dad so much, and Arya turns and pushes her way out of the circle, and through the crowd of dancers because she can’t stay there standing still and feeling horrible, but she also can’t keep dancing—not now, not when she’s jealous of someone she doesn’t know, that person he dreams with and shares all his secrets with and who probably would laugh at her if she met her because Gendry isn’t Arya’s, Gendry is _hers_.   

When she reaches the street, she shivers, because the sea breeze against the sweat on her skin is almost chilly.  She reaches down and adjusts her skirt, then crosses her arms over her chest, and begins marching back towards the hotel, breathing deeply when a moment later, she hears someone calling her name. 

“Arya?”  

It’s Ned, his shirt a little sweaty from the club, his hair a bit of a mess.  “Hey.”  Her voice doesn’t sound her own.  Her voice never sounds that way—all cheerful and bright and Sansa like.  Oh god, she sounds like Sansa.  Surely that must mean she is about to lose it, because Sansa only ever sounded that bright on days when she was barely keeping it together. 

“You heading back?” Ned asks. 

“Yeah.  I was going to.  Want to rest up.  Pitching tomorrow.”  She never sounds so hearty and it feels like she’s wearing someone else’s face. 

“I’ll walk with you.  I have to phone Sansa.” 

They walk in silence, listening to the sounds of the city, of drunken people talking too loudly, of music streaming out of open apartment windows, cars and buses rolling past.  Arya crosses her arms over her chest, wishing her skirt weren’t so short, and that she hadn’t opted for a tank top, because finally it felt like springtime should feel—chilly enough to make you shiver.  Worse still that she’d just been sweating. 

“You ok?” Ned asks her. 

“Fine,” she says.  “Just fine.” 

“You don’t look or sound it, so forgive me for not believing you,” he says gently. 

If she weren’t so whatever she was, she’d glare at him, but she is so she can’t.  Instead she just shakes her head.  “I’m just confused about things.  It’ll pass.” 

“Anything I can help with?” he asks. 

“I’m…It’s soulmate stuff,” she says. 

“Ah.  Well, then I’d say I’d recommend communication.”  He barks out a dry laugh.  “I’d really recommend that, actually.” 

“Ned?” she asks slowly.  “How are things with Sansa?” 

“Well, we’re talking about it, so that’s good,” he says. “Counseling together.  Because shit’s broken or whatever.”  He sounds suddenly glum.  “I don’t know how it got that way.  For fuck’s sake, one minute things were more than perfect and the next…I’m a shitbag.  So yeah—counseling.  It’s getting better.  But communication, all right?  Just tell your soulmate what’s on your mind.” 

She gives him a hug before they get into the elevator and when she reaches the room she’s sharing with Weasel, she almost feels a little better. Almost.

* * *

The field is empty when she gets there—empty and dark, and she wills the stadium lights to turn on, but they don’t.  She goes into the dugouts to find the balls, but can’t, and she wonders what her soulmate did with them when they were last here. She walks back out to the pitcher’s mound and sits down and waits, hoping he’ll dream with her tonight.

She remembers what Jon had said—about how sometimes he goes to the places where he and Ygritte dreamed together and she’s not there and it hurts. She wonders if that can happen even when her soulmate is alive.  Her heart stops for a moment.  She’s never had to wait this long before, has she?  For him to show up?  What if something’s happened to him?  What if he’s…She’s being silly and she knows it. It’s a Friday night. He’s probably out with friends or something.  Sometimes they don’t dream together on weekends. It’s fine.  All the same, there’s never been a time when she’s dreamed of this place on her own, but here she is, sitting cross-legged on the pitcher’s mound, without even a breeze to blow through her hair.

He drifts into existence by home plate and looks around, confused. Then he walks out to the mound.

“What’s up?” he asks her.

“I dunno,” she says.   “It was like this when I got here.”

She thinks he’s frowning, even if she can’t see his face.  That’s the hardest thing, she thinks. That she can’t even see his expressions.  His silences are just that much more stressful when she can’t see his face.

“So then?” he asks, sitting down next to her.  “What’s on your mind?”

“Who says something’s on my mind?”

“Well,” he looks around, “This is your space, isn’t it?  And you got here first and it’s all weird. So…something’s going on in your head.  What is it?”

She lies down on her back and looks up at the sky.  It’s speckled with stars the way the sky above Winterfell was when she and Bran had climbed out onto the roof of their house to stare at the constellations. It’s a thought that makes her sad. Is this going to upset her soulmate, the way that Jojen was upset when Bran told him about Meera?

“I…” she begins, and swallows because her throat is suddenly dry. Her soulmate lies down next to her and looks up too.  Arya takes a deep breath.  “I’ve been having dreams lately.  Dreams that aren’t with you.”

Is she imagining it or did he stop breathing.

“Oh?”

“Yeah.”

“Ah.”

“Yeah.”

Silence seems to span miles between them and suddenly her heart is pounding in her chest, violently and in terror and the words fall over themselves trying to get out of her mouth.  “I’m not dreaming _with_ someone else—just of someone else.  And that’s different.  It is. My sister dreams _with_ two people, and it’s not like that.  Not like that at all.  It’s just…it’s confusing and I feel weird and I…I wanted to tell you because I can’t really lie to you.  Please don't hate me.”

He doesn’t say a word but he twists over on his side and faces her and gods, it’s so strange, like someone just scratched a stag over a photograph and etched out someone’s face, and if she weren’t so used to it she’d be scared.

“You still can’t see my face?” he asks her.

“No,” she says miserably.  He reaches over and cradles her chin in his hand.

“They’re good dreams, though?  The ones of…” his voice trails off.

“Yeah. They’re good.  They’re…” she blushes and looks away from him. “Really good.”

“Should I be jealous?” he asks seriously, and she shakes her head.

“No. He’s…he’s a friend. You’re my soulmate. It’s different. It’s just…I don’t know. Maybe I’m just randy or something.”

He laughs and lies back down. 

“What’s so funny?”

“I couldn’t even begin to explain it,” he says and for a moment, for just a moment, she thinks she sees the outline of his nose.


	4. Chapter 4

Most of the team is very hungover the next morning, not to mention exhausted, but it doesn’t matter, because Arya pitches her first perfect game ever, sending strike after strike into Myrcella’s glove.  Their game is over long before the boys’ game, and the team divides, some heading back to the hotel for more sleep, some heading over to the field next over to cheer on the boys.  Arya does neither.  She sits in the locker room, long after everyone else has gone and ices her shoulder because it stings to move it.  It’s done that before, after she’s pitched a long time, but never quite like this. 

“You need to keep watching your elbow.”  She hadn’t heard Syrio come in, but there he is, standing over her and looking not so much concerned as amused. 

“Yeah—I remembered that when it started hurting,” she sighs, and she shifts over on the bench, making room for him.  He makes a grunting noise as his butt connects with the wood and he leans back against the wall. 

“You will remember sooner next time,” he replies easily.  “You pitched well today.  How do you feel?” 

Her heart swells.  Syrio is sparse with his praise. Encouragement is constant, but praise—true praise—is rare and he only gives it where it’s is due. Him saying that she pitched well makes her feel truly proud of herself for the first time since she came back into the locker room. 

“Good.  I feel really good,” she replies, and as she says it, she feels a smile cross her face. 

“That is good.  It is good to feel good about one’s victories.  What have you learned from it?” 

She thought for a moment, chewing her lip.  “I…I will watch my elbow next time,” she says, and he laughs. 

“A valiant start.  What else?” 

“I’ll…” but she doesn’t know what he’s getting at. Sometimes she sees it, sometimes she doesn’t, and right now, she can’t for the life of her follow. 

“How did the rest of the team play?” he asks lightly. 

Myrcella had hit twice, Obella had stolen third, Alysanne had scored the one run they’d needed to win.  But it had not been a good game.  “Not so well,” she says.  “Not so well at all.” 

“Did you feel the weight of that while you pitched?” Syrio asks. 

“Yeah.  I did.  I couldn’t let them down.” 

“In most games, do you worry about letting them down?” 

Now she saw it—what he was getting at.  “No, I don’t.  But in most games I’m competitive too.  I am playing to win.” 

“Playing to win and playing to cover are different things,” he says.  “For some, it manifests the opposite of the way it does for you.  You pitched the best game I’ve seen you pitch because you knew you couldn’t fail them.  So you didn’t.  So next time…” his voice trails away and he looks at her with raised eyebrows. 

“So next time, keep playing defense?” she suggests. 

“Yes.  As they say, the best defense is a good offense.  Think of your throws as a shield.  Without them, you won’t have to worry that Elia’s head is splitting open, because the ball won’t make it to her, or that Cynthia is running more slowly than usual because she still feels sluggish from last night.” 

He takes the ice pack from her shoulder. “Alternate it with warmth.  Don’t leave it there all day.  Besides,” he eyes the bag which is now dripping with cold water, “This one is nearly useless now anyway.” 

* * *

She sits with Ned on the bus ride out to Casterly Rock the next day, ignoring Gendry entirely.  He seems in a better mood today.  Ned says he hit two home runs yesterday, and everyone pretty much agreed that he was responsible for the sound thrashing that the baseball team had given LannisU.  Arya shrugs and adjusts her baseball cap when Ned tells her and says that that’s good for him, and wishes that it were Gendry telling her, with that sideways smile that was more a quirk of the lips than anything else that he did when he was trying not to sound too pleased with himself because she’d smack him.  She changes the subject soon thereafter, getting into a debate about whether or not the Spears should trade away Arthur Dayne, Ned’s uncle, because he’s getting old and his knees weren’t what they once were, but he was the icon of the team.  Ned accuses her of just wanting him to go to Winterfell and she grins because she can’t even deny it. 

She watches Rosamund pitch a good first half, and when she begins to flag, they swap in Weasel and Arya grins because she sees the little freshman nervously trying to incorporate the pointers that Arya had given her and her heart swells with pride as she strikes out three batters in a row and comes grinning off the field to sit by Arya. 

* * *

“Oh like hells I am,” snaps Puddingfoot and Lyanna bursts out laughing. 

“Oh, but you are, and if you don’t, I’m—“ 

“You’re going to make me?” he crosses his arms at her and she laughs again. 

“Yeah—I am.” 

“You and what army?” he demands. 

“I don’t need an army.  I can do what I like.” 

The argument evaporates when Beric clears his throat and looks at them over the tops of his glasses.  “We are in a public car, and I know we are the only ones in it, however some of us were hoping for some peace and quiet,” he says.  Both mumble their apologies and begin hissing at each other, and Arya can’t hear them anymore. 

There’s something lulling about trains, something peaceful and beautiful as they speed their way back along the Red Fork Line towards Harrenhal.  She loves watching the farms and pastures they pass, the windmills, the odd town full of lovely little red roved houses, all while the gentle thrumming of the train sooths her, makes her drowsy.  She’s half asleep, hoping that she’ll slip back into that dream she’d had on the way out, maybe picking up right where she’d left off when Gendry slides into the seat next to her. 

She blinks drowsily at him.  “You over it, then?” she asks. 

“Nearly,” he says.  “Sorry.”  He doesn’t elaborate though. 

“Yeah, well…it’d be nice if you didn’t take out your anger problems on me.  That’s what the baseballs are for.” 

That makes him smile wryly.  “Yeah—I know.  That’s why I played well this weekend.” Then it’s like her words fully hit him.  “And I don’t have anger problems.” 

That makes her grin.  “Of course not,” she says, patting his arm consolingly, and he glares at her, but it’s a good glare, the kind of glare he gives her when she makes fun of how Duckworth can’t pitch for shit, and how Targaryen really needs to spend more time at batting practice.   

“Sometimes I wonder why I bother with you,” he mutters and she laughs. 

“Because I’m charming and delightful, obviously.” 

“A right pain in my ass, more like.” 

“But you like it,” she grins.  “Is that something you like?  Something I should tell your soulmate to try?”  

He blushes furiously and Arya lets out a shriek of laughter that earns her a glare form Beric, so she stuffs her fist into her mouth to stifle the sound. 

When she drifts off to sleep, her head is on Gendry’s shoulder and it takes her a moment to realize she is dreaming when he twists against her and begins sucking on her neck because she refuses to be worse than Elia and Lyanna, but the car of the train is empty, so what does it matter—no one will notice that she’s sliding her hand down to cup his cock. 

* * *

She stumbles from the train even more confused now than she had been before, hardly able to look Gendry in the face because he’d made her come three times in her dreams and she wasn’t entirely sure some of that hadn’t translated to her coming in her sleep because she’s never really felt quite this breathless in this way before.  No one looks at her oddly—there’s no whispering, no anything, no teasing remarks from either team as she climbs onto the bus from the train station back to the university and Gendry sits next to her again.  Is she imagining it, or are his cheeks a bit flushed?  Does he seem a little pleased with himself? 

He’s probably just well rested.   

Part of her wants to go back to sleep again, to sink into her dreams and hope that her soulmate is sleeping too so that she can play softball or baseball with him, or even just lie down on the field and stare at the stars, but she’s far too keyed up for it. 

She throws her bag into a corner by her bed when she gets back to her room and she’s calling Jon.  He picks up on the third ring. 

“Hey—you made the news,” he says, and she hears a grin in his voice. 

“What?” she says. 

“Yeah—your shutout against Lannisport made the news.  It was the local news mind, but they’re starting to think you all might upset Winterfell in a few weeks.  Nice no-hitter, by the way.” 

“They think we might upset Winterfell?”  It’s the sort of news that blows everything out of her mind for just a minute, because Winterfell…they weren’t counting on beating Winterfell.  White Harbor, yes.  But Winterfell…they hadn’t thought it possible.  But if the news casters are nervous… “How much of that might be wishful thinking on the part of Castle Black?” she asks hesitantly.   

“Well, it was the WinterNetwork, so…I don’t think it’s wishful thinking.” 

Arya’s heart beats wildly in her chest.  “They think we might win?” 

“Yep.  The boys here have a pool going on, by the way.  I bet on you out of principle, so don’t you let me down, ok?” 

“Well, now I have to win,” she says excitedly.  “Wouldn’t want you to lose the two dragons you have.” 

“I have more than two dragons,” Jon says dryly.  

“You keep telling yourself that when Robb next beats you at poker.” 

“Robb can’t beat me at poker.  Robb’s a liar and a sneak.”  Jon says it perfectly cheerfully and Arya can tell he’s smiling.  Gods, she wants to see him smile.  Sometimes she looks in the mirror and smiles and is reminded of Jon so much it almost hurts.  A part of her, a bitter part, tells her that she wishes that any of her siblings but Sansa was here with her.  She’d been here on her own for a few years—but then Sansa had transferred over from The Eyrie to be with Ned, after transferring there to get away from Joffrey—and she knows she shouldn’t look a gift horse—or gift sibling, she supposes—in the mouth.  But it’s Sansa.  Why couldn’t she have had Jon?  Or Bran? 

“What’s going on on your end?” she asks him, and he launches into a ridiculous story about Sam getting lost up Beyond and how they had to take out snow mobiles to find him, and had ended up lost themselves, and Grenn and Pyp had had to huddle for warmth.  “At least I had Ghost,” Jon says. 

“Sam was all right?” Arya asks. 

“Yeah.  He was fine.  And get this—he stumbled on his soulmate.  She’s really sweet, and gentle and perfect for him in so many ways.” 

Arya doesn’t say anything, because at the mention of soulmates, she remembers why she’s calling, and wonders if she can even bring it up now.  She’s so relaxed now, and Jon’s sounding happy for the first time in ages, and she wouldn’t want to bring down the conversation but… 

“Arya?” 

“Yeah?” 

“What’s wrong with your soulmate?” 

“How could you tell?” she sighs, flipping over on her bed and burying her face in her pillow.   

“Well, I mentioned a soulmate and you went quiet, and I’ve been in this family long enough to know that that usually indicates soulmate troubles.  Hit me, I just had a very long conversation with Bran.” 

“How’s Bran?” 

“He’s managing.  Quit deflecting and cough up.” 

Arya rolls her eyes, takes a deep breath and sighs.  “So, I keep having sex dreams about my best friend.  And I don’t know what to do about it.  I thought it would stop.  But it hasn’t.  And they’re only getting more intense.” 

Jon’s silent for a moment, then he bursts out laughing.  “So?  What’re you worried about then?  Sex dreams happen.” 

“Yeah—but not this often.  Not with me.” 

“Call it your sexual awakening, then.  Are you worried your soulmate’ll be upset?” 

“He’s not.  I told him.” 

“Well, that’s good of him.  What’s the issue?” 

“He’s my  _friend_ , Jon.  What would you do if you had sex dreams about…I don’t know…Sam.” 

Jon snorts.  “Well, for one I’d be very confused because I’ve never once in my life been attracted to a man before.  But I don’t know.  At this point I’d just be happy to dream about anyone that’s not missing Ygritte.”  That shuts her up and shuts her up good, which was evidently Jon’s intent, because he makes a sound at the back of his throat and says, “Look, so you haven’t had sex dreams before and that’s weirding you out.  That’s fine.  But if your soulmate doesn’t mind, then it’s ok and you shouldn’t feel bad.  Sex things shouldn’t ever make you feel bad.” 

“Yeah, but…what about Gendry?” 

“It’s  _Gendry_?” Jon laughs again.  “Well…I suppose that makes sense.  He’s quite fit, to hear the lasses—” 

“Oh shut up.” 

“Sorry, sorry.  Look, what he doesn’t know won’t kill him, and with sex dreams it’s often better that the other party  _doesn’t_  know about it.”

“He’d probably get a big head over it,” she mutters. 

“Wouldn’t surprise me.  Most guys I know would.”  She can hear the shrug in Jon’s voice.  “But look—you’re feeling guilty, right?  Why are you feeling guilty?  Do you feel like you should be—be having sex with your soulmate or something instead?”  She hears the way his voice breaks, but doesn’t comment on it.  She never does.  None of them do, when he remembers Ygritte.   

“I don’t know.  It just…It feels like it’s…I don’t know.  It’s intimate, all right?” 

“Sexual intimacy isn’t the only kind of intimacy.  You should know that.  Between Bran and Sansa, you should really know that.  So learn about him.  Keep talking to him.  Keep pushing him to know more about you.  It’ll help.  And, if you do it right, maybe you’ll stop your sex dreams with Gendry.  Unless, of course, you want to keep them, under which circumstances I’m sure your brain’ll keep sending them your way.” 

“Thanks,” she mumbles. 

“I mean it,” Jon says quickly, “I’m not taking the piss or—” 

“No!  I know you do.  I…I mean it too.”  She takes a deep breath and closes her eyes and tries to remember what the field in her dreams looks like but she can only think of Gendry as he’d eased into her— _into her,_  fuck she’d forgotten that, how had she forgotten that?  Fuck—in that dream on the train.  “Other kinds of intimacy.  Right.” 

* * *

If it’s possible, she sighs with relief when she fades into the dream, standing at the middle of the baseball diamond.  He’s already there, wearing a Dragons t-shirt and when she looks down, she sees that she’s wearing the white and grey pinstripe Direwolves jersey she’d stolen off Jon when he’d grown out of it.   

“Ready to play?” he asks her, hefting his bat over his shoulder, and she grins at him.  

“Always.” 

And she hurls the ball his way.  He swings and…misses? 

“Did I get one past you?” she asks incredulously. 

“No.  I let it by.” 

“I got one past you!”   She’s practically cackling now.  It’s never happened before.  “I’m on fire!” 

“I sincerely hope not, because there’s no water here to put you out with and—” 

“Oh shut up.”  She sticks her tongue out at him and he grins at her.  “Quit being a whiny fucker and acknowledge that I got one past you.” 

“You kiss your mother with that mouth?” he laughs and that’s when she remembers. 

She hadn’t thought anything of it at the time.  It had been so buried in something else, something stupid in comparison, but Jon’s words about intimacy are still on her mind and she remembers just how smoothly he had deflected when she’d asked. 

“What is it?” he asks. 

“You never answered…When I asked you what your mother was like,” she says cautiously.  And  _gods_ , it’s the worst not being able to see his face—not being able to tell if she’s crossed a line, or if he was rolling his eyes at her for asking a stupid question.   

She can tell  _something’s_  up because he lets the bat fall from his hands and he waves her over, walking towards the dugout and sitting down on the bench.  She puts the ball down on the mound and follows him, feeling as though her dream makes the distance between the mound and the dugout a little smaller. 

“Yeah, my mom’s dead,” he says without preamble when she’s sitting next to him.  “She died a few years ago.  Before I started college.” 

“I’m so sorry,” Arya whispers, taking his hand and squeezing it.  His hand is very big, and there are calluses on it from the baseball bat.  She wonders if he wears batting gloves when he plays.  He should. 

“Thanks,” he says shortly.  “I don’t talk about it much.  There’s not much to say about it.” 

“She was your mom,” Arya says before she can stop herself, then winces and looks at him sheepishly.  “I mean…there doesn’t have to be a lot to say.  It’s…it runs deep, I guess.” 

“Yeah, I suppose.” 

“What was she like, then?” Arya asks.   

“She had a temper, and drank a fair amount.  Which is part of why I don’t drink.  She had shit taste in boyfriends, even after my dad.  They weren’t so great.  I think part of why I started playing baseball as opposed to just watching was so I could keep a bat in my room in case things got ugly and no one would second guess it.  Ha,” he lets out a laugh as though to lighten that statement and Arya’s riveted.  “They were awful, and she’d cry herself to sleep and drink when she left.  I think her soulmate died or something—she never talked about him at all.  Yeah.  It wasn’t ideal growing up, all right.  And…And I’m glad you didn’t have that.  Because it fucking sucks.  A lot.   A hell of a lot.” 

She turns to face him and looks hard into that scratched out spot on his head and wills herself to see him, but she can’t.  So she just wraps her arms around him, as tight as she can, and she hears him make a surprised sound even as he raises his arms to encircle her.  He’s warm, and smells good and she her stomach lurches because he uses the same pine deodorant as Gendry does, and gods—why can’t they just be more different?  Why does this all have to be so intertwined, so complicated?

She holds him like that for a long while, his arms around her, her breathing in the familiar scent of him, relishing the warmth of his body against hers and how good it feels to just hold someone close.  She doesn’t expect him to keep going.

“She didn’t want me.  I don’t think.  Yeah…she definitely didn’t.  So…I dunno. Thanks.”

“Thanks for what?” she asks incredulously. 

“For wanting me.”  Her heart breaks a little and she reaches up and touches his cheek, and her hand goes blurry as it approaches his skin.  He twists his face towards her hand and kisses her palm.

“Always,” she whispers to him, then presses her forehead to his chest. “Always.”

* * *

Every night that week is a baseball dream.  Every single one.  Sometimes they’re laughing and joking about how the Dragons are still on a losing streak, sometimes they’re quiet and the only sound is the smack of the ball against his bat.  But every morning, Arya wakes up and she feels warm inside, perfect, unconfused. 


	5. Chapter 5

The sun is burning hot and Arya wishes to hell that their caps aren’t black because a black cap on black hair on a hot day is probably the epitome of at least one of the seven hells, if not multiple ones.  She sits in the dugout with the rest of the team as the coaches come over. 

“Right,” says Ravella, “We’ve got…” she glances down at her clipboard, “High Hermitage and Sunspear coming north for us over the next two weeks.  We’re ranked higher than both, and, frankly, I’m not worried.  But that doesn’t mean we get lax.  We’re doing really well this season, and I know that we’d all like to make playoffs. 

“So that means no funny business,” she looks around at them and her tone gets light while her eyes get hard and Arya knows full well that they’re in for a talking to.  “We would have lost at LannisU if Arya hadn’t been on her game.  I know it’s fun going to a big city, but I want none of that while we’re in White Harbor, all right?  You have a commitment to your team to play your best, and not let anyone down.” 

The team is silent, and some of them look down at their hands. 

“Now,” she says, “Let’s get going.” 

* * *

The day before the Dornish come north, Arya finds Sansa sitting on the floor outside her dorm room, her eyes glazed and her face red.

“’lo,” Sansa mumbles.

“Sansa?”

“That’sss me,” she slurs.  Arya has never seen Sansa this drunk before.  Drunk enough to be pretty, yes, but never sitting on the floor and unable to stand or speak properly.  Arya hoists her to her feet and pushes her into the dorm room. Beth takes one look at Arya and Sansa, picks up her laptop and goes out of the room, shooting Arya a concerned glance.

“What’s going on there?” Arya asks.

“You know what?” Sansa says, swaying, and Arya steers her over to the trash can in case she gets sick, then digs her water bottle out of her backpack and forces it into Sansa’s hand.  “I was awful to you growing up.”

Arya stiffens.  “You weren’t,” she lies because this is not a conversation for now.

“I was,” Sansa hiccups.  “I was a right little shit, making fun of your softball uniforms and thinking I could say things like that.  I don’t think I can ever say anything to make it better.  But I’m sorry.”

“Well, thanks,” Arya says numbly, and Sansa bobs her head. Under any other circumstances, she would have been thrilled to hear this. She might even have given Sansa a proper hug, and then they would have talked for hours and hours, but Sansa’s drunk and Arya wonders if she really means it, and that almost makes it hurt worse.

“Well, you’rrrrrrre welcome.”  For a moment, Arya thinks that Sansa will smile.  But she’s wrong—very wrong.  Sansa’s face splits into an expression of deep misery and tears begin to stream down her face.  “Ned thinks I spend too much time with Sandor, and that it’s making me hate myself because he hates himself and always goes on about the shit he did wrong.  And it makes me think about the shit I did wrong.  And Sandor thinks that I live in denial when I spend my time with Ned, and that I pretend to be happy when I’m not because it makes me feel better about everything. And to be honest, I think that both of them are being very se-selfishhhh about it.”  She hiccups again.  “Haha.  I’m drunnnk and crying like Sandor.  Hating myself and everything I’ve done to hurt others.”

“Sansa,” Arya crouches down in front of her sister and takes both her hands, “Can you go nocturnal for a few days?  Sleep when they’re awake so you have some peace and quiet?  You’re losing yourself a bit right now.”

“That’s what my therapist was saying,” she sobs.  “Thinks I’m beating myself up and that they’re trying to help but they’re making it worse.  And I don’t know what to do because I can’t just abandon them. I ca-ca-can’t. They’re a part of me, and I love them and I can’t leave them to be hurt.”  It took Sansa about ten seconds to hear the words she’d just said, and her face crumples even more.  “Fuck.  Fuck me. Fuck all this. Fuck Joffrey for turning me into this self-effacing mess.  Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. Fuck.”

Sansa cries for another half hour and Arya makes her finish two full water bottles before putting her to sleep in her bed.  The best thing, Arya thinks bitterly as she opens her computer to see if Bran is online, is that it’s far too early in the evening for either Ned or Sandor to be asleep, so Sansa might get a little peace and quiet.

_Arya Stark: You there?_

_Bran Stark: Yes.  Hello!  You’re home soon!_

_Arya Stark:  I am!  Keeping everything nice for me?_

_Bran Stark: Obviously. Dad has tickets to the Wolves-Dragons game if you want them._

_Arya Stark: YES I DO THEY ARE MINE. HOW MANY? WHEN? WHERE IN THE STANDS?_

_Bran Stark: Between first and home. Tickets for you, me, Jon if he comes down from Castle Black which he will because between the two of us we can make him, and a friend of yours if you’d like to bring one. It’s technically for mom, but you and I both know she would be grateful for an excuse not to come, especially if she can be a good matriarch/hostess while doing it._

_Arya Stark: Good.  Commence operation get-Jon-south?_

_Bran Stark: Already in motion. I may need backup._

_Arya Stark: Roger that._

_Bran Stark: Good._

_Bran Stark: I miss you._

_Arya Stark: And you. How’s your semester going?_

_Bran Stark: Better. Better.  Yeah._

_Arya Stark: ?_

_Bran Stark: Jojen and I had a bit of a…it’s fine now.  We worked it out. I told you a bit about it._

_Arya Stark: Was it worse than you let on?_

_Bran Stark: Probably? I don’t know.  We worked it out, so it can’t all be that bad, right?_

_Bran Stark: Robb was helpful. Had some good advice. Jon too._

_Arya Stark: That’s good. Is it really worked out? Because Sansa keeps saying hers is worked out when it’s not._

_Bran Stark: It is.  It actually is.  I promise.  We’re still getting used to it, but yeah.  It’s settled I think.  I can go back to awkwardly pining for my soulmate’s sister in peace._

_Arya Stark: Well, that is the only way to pine after someone who is not your soulmate._

_Bran Stark: ?_

_Arya Stark: I’ve been having dreams…about a friend._

_Arya Stark: It’s just weird. I’m confused.  But also not confused.  But also very confused._

_Bran Stark: Is this a friend who I know?_

_Arya Stark: Gendry. I’m probably giving him mom’s ticket to the Wolves game._

_Bran Stark: Hmmmmm_

_Arya Stark: What’s that for?_

_Bran Stark: Nothing._

_Arya Stark: Liar._

_Bran Stark: You’ve just given me a lot of expectations for this one over the years._

_Arya Stark: I have not._

_Bran Stark: You have._

_Bran Stark: You talk about him all the time._

_Bran Stark: I shall reserve all thought for the moment I meet him._

_Arya Stark: Probably for the best._

_Bran Stark: I’ll give you my diagnosis when this is all done._

_Arya Stark: Oh go stop being silly._

_Bran Stark: Never._

_Arya Stark: Not now, but can you talk to Sansa?  I feel like a broken record and I don’t think it’s helping anything, and she always listened to you better than me._

_Bran Stark: She melting down again?_

_Arya Stark: A bit.  She’s drunk and asleep in my bed right now._

_Bran Stark: :/_

_Arya Stark: :/_

_Bran Stark: Yeah…I’ll try. I don’t know how much good I’ll be. It’s more just something she needs to keep working on on her own._

_Arya Stark: It sucks that we can’t just have a de-bug program like computers do.  Imagine how much shit that could solve._

_Bran Stark: It would be great. Alas, we are humans._

_Arya Stark: Yeah…._

_Bran Stark: I’ve got to go. Having dinner with Jojen. I’ll see you very soon!_

_Arya Stark: Love you!_

_Bran Stark: And you!_

* * *

She sits about as far away from Gendry as she can on the couch, staring at the screen, doing her best not to notice how happy he looks every time that the Dragons get a hit against the Towers.   

“Playing well today, aren’t they?” Gendry says cheerfully during the fifth inning.  The Dragons have a two run lead, and their new pitcher, an acquisition from Tyrosh named Daario Naharis, throws fire better than anyone else on the team.  Lasts longer too, Arya thinks idly, since they haven’t even gone to relief yet and he’s still striking Towers out left and right. 

“The Towers are in the middle of a losing streak, so that doesn’t exactly beg a compliment,” she says dryly, taking a sip of her beer. 

“So long as it’s not us,” shrugs Gendry.  “I’m all right.   _Yes!”_  he exclaims as Naharis strikes out Tyrell and the inning is over.  “Fuck he was money well spent, wasn’t he?” 

“Yes,” she agrees.  “But, then again, if you have a good pitcher, you don’t need anyone else.” 

“Except to score runs,” Gendry retorts. 

“A good pitcher can hit too.  That’s what made everyone like Nymeria Ny Sar so much.” 

“Nymeria who?” Gendry asks, his brow furrowing as he lifts his beer bottle to his mouth. 

“Nymeria Ny Sar.  How come no one ever follows softball?  It’s just as good as baseball, and there are amazing players out there—ones who can both pitch  _and_  hit for example.” 

“Maybe because baseball is better.” 

“Or maybe because sports culture is sexist,” she shoots back. 

“You participate in sports culture,” Gendry replies slowly, putting his bottle back on the table in front of him. 

“So I’d be an expert then, wouldn’t I?” she says, smiling at him in a way that’s less a smile and more of an invitation for him to keep arguing with her.  “Tell me that the Harrenhal University baseball team doesn’t get more attention than the softball team, even though we are at a level in terms of standings.  Tell me that people don’t call us all lesbians, and use the simple fact of Elia and Lyanna being soulmates to prove their point even though it’s a crap point, it’s meant to be demeaning, and even if it weren’t it’s just plain rude.  Tell me that we aren’t just as good athletes as you lot.  Go on.  Tell me.” 

“You know I don’t think any of that,” he replies. He’s not quite angry, but it’s snappish, the way he is when they get at each other, or when he’s got something to prove.    

“Yeah.  I know.  I’m not talking about you.  I’m talking about the culture as a whole.” 

The game is back on and she turns to watch it, settling back into the couch. 

“When did she play?” Gendry asks about halfway through the inning. 

“Who?” 

“Nymeria Ny Sar.” 

“She was one of the first in the national league.  She struck out  _both_ Mors Martell and Yorick Yronwood and the next day her contract was severed and they expelled women from the league saying they couldn’t play baseball, so she fucking _founded_ the softball league.  People always remember Mors Martell before her but she was  _better_.” 

“I’ll look her up.” 

“You should.  She’s excellent.” 

* * *

Rosamund pitches them to a win against High Hermitage, and they barely scrape a victory against Sunspear, but they manage.  The boys win against High Hermitage, but lose against Sunspear and they all drink themselves into oblivion that night, even though it’s a school night, even though they have morning practice the next day, even though the last time they all got this drunk was before their LannisU games which they’d both played badly during.  But none of them care, especially not when Tom and Lem get into a pong competition, and Shireen teaches them all a new drinking game that she picked up from her a cappella singing roommate, and Gendry’s just sitting there, watching them all with a big smile on his face. 

She fucks him again in her dreams that night.  Well and truly.  Before when they’d had sex—or she had dreamed them having sex, really—he’d eased into her, it had been gentle and hot and definitely him initiating it, but in that dream, it’s Arya who climbs on top of him, Arya who takes his cock in hand and pushes herself onto it, Arya who writhes while he sits up and kisses her breasts and moans her name and comes too quickly because looking at her on him seems to have as much power as feeling her on him.  And when she jerks awake to the sound of her alarm, far more hungover than she wants to be, she’s not sure, but she imagines the feeling of his cum on the inside of her thighs, even though she knows it’s sweat, or her own juices, or whatever, and it makes her want to bury her head into her pillow or call sick to practice because it had all been so good—her and her dreams and her soulmate—but Gendry just wouldn’t go away, and it almost makes her hate herself. 

* * *

“Hey—you know how we’re going to Winterfell next weekend?”  she asks Gendry as she throws him the ball. 

“Really?  I had thought it was Braavos,” he says dryly, flicking the ball back to her, and she rolls her eyes. 

“Well, my dad has tickets to the Wolves Dragons game.  You want to come?” 

He doesn’t even watch the ball as it arcs into his glove.  He’s staring at her as if surprised by everything including why he was holding a baseball and why the sun was shining outside. 

“Yeah—that’d be nice.  If…if it’s not a burden.” 

“My mom’ll thank you.  She doesn’t like going to games,” Arya shrugs.  And when he throws the ball back to her, his movement is slow, precise, graceful and the ball seems to curl through the air before it reaches her. 

* * *

When she gets on the train, she sees Gendry saving a seat for her and begins making her way towards him, but Ned grabs her arm as she passes him and says, “Hey, can I talk to you for a second?”  She raises a finger to Gendry, who makes a face at her, then shrugs and turns to look in a different direction, and she slips into the seat next to Ned.  

“What’s going on now?” she asks him. 

“Right, so…do you have Sandor’s number?” 

Arya stares at him as if he’s gone mad.  “His number?” 

“Yeah.  I want to talk to him.” 

“What about?” she asks hesitantly, thinking of Sansa drunk and sobbing in her bed. 

“I’m tired of putting Sansa through everything and he and I need to figure something out.  So I thought I’d reach out to him.” 

Arya winces.  “Might that not actually make it worse?  He’s a bit rough sometimes.” 

“Yeah—Sansa says he is.  Look—I don’t care if he’s rough, but he doesn’t want to hurt her either, so maybe we can at least reach some sort of…lack of overt hostility or something.” 

Arya tugs out her phone and scrolls through her contact information.  Then she frowns.  “I don’t have it.  I…Yeah.  I don’t think Sansa ever gave it to me.  My brother Bran might, though.  I’ll check with him this weekend.”   

Ned nods, and he looks resolved.  “You ok?” he asks her. 

“Yeah?” 

“You seem edgy?” 

“Gendry’s waiting for me,” she says, and a slow smile spreads across Ned’s face.  She hits him.  “Not like that, stupid.  I just said I’d sit with him is all.” 

“Sorry, sorry,” says Ned, sounding like he is the exact opposite of sorry.  If anything his grin widens and she hits him again, getting up and making her way down the row. 

Gendry is listening to his music player when she sits down next to him, and without a word he takes one of his earbuds out and sticks it into her ear and the sound of strange drums fills her ears.   

“What’s this?” she asks. 

“Someone went and took the sounds of people hitting home runs and set it to the melody of My Featherbed.  Listen.” 

She does, and then starts laughing and he’s grinning at her and gods, she shouldn’t be tempted to kiss him the way she is, so instead she just leans back in her seat and listens. 

* * *

They lose to White Harbor.  And it’s not just a loss, not just a run slid in just under the wire—it’s a flattening. They take Weasel out after an inning because she lets four runs score and she is so upset with herself that she looks like she might cry for the rest of the game.  If they’d put Arya in, they might have been able to salvage it, but they were saving her for Winterfell and they’ll need her even more at Winterfell because they really can’t lose and somewhere over the season she became their star pitcher. 

No one says anything in the locker rooms as they change, and Arya follows Weasel back to the hotel room.  And when the other girl thinks Arya’s asleep, she starts to cry. 

“Happens to everyone,” Arya says and Weasel hiccups in surprise.  “Everyone has a spectacular loss.  It’s part of life.” 

“Yeah—but I blasted our chances,” Weasel sniffles. 

“No, you didn’t.  You just put more pressure on me.  But that’s all right.  I’ll carry that weight.  Don’t beat yourself up.  Everyone has an off day.” 

“You don’t,” Weasel mutters.  “You always win.” 

“I didn’t when I was a freshman,” Arya says, and she gets up off her bed and sits at the foot of Weasel’s, resting her hand on the girl’s ankle through her blankets.  “I screwed up loads.  But I got better and kept working at it.  And you will too.  You have something to fight against now that’s not just the other team.  You’ve got to push yourself.  And you do.  You can.  You will.” 

She sees Weasel wipe her face in the dark, sees the shadow of her head nodding, and Arya climbs off the bed again and settles down into her own. 

When she dreams, she’s in the field again, and her soulmate is waiting for her, and she pitches all night, practicing her form, making herself better, because she refuses to lose at Winterfell.  She refuses. 


	6. Chapter 6

Arya gets off the bus in Winter Town the next day with a chill in her lungs and a song in her heart as she bids the team goodbye and heads home.  They’ll be there for three days—longer than usual, but Winterfell has only got one field and their baseball team is hosting invitationals, and because she lives in Winterfell, Syrio’s given her special permission to stay home.  Three days where she can sleep in her own bed, play with Nymeria, watch movies with her parents, curl up around Bran and tell him everything she could think of because it was always easier, somehow, seeing people.  You could actually talk about things, and not just send them updates.   

It was one of the strange things about school.  She hadn’t been close to Sansa growing up—not even a little.  But just the simple fact of having Sansa there, and dating her friend, made everything that much harder, that much more complicated.  She couldn’t just ignore her sister, and sometimes it was all she wanted to do.  Ignoring Sansa, retreating into softball where her sister wouldn’t follow—that had gotten Arya through far more than she liked to admit. It’s that Sansa, the one who made her feel like she was scrabbling for recognition, trying to force her way into family moments where she should have felt welcome, who always lied and got Arya into trouble, that permeates Winterfell, with her snotty raised eyebrows and her delicate, condescending laugh.  But that Sansa…that Sansa is a memory now—or so it feels sometimes when Arya sees her at Harrenhal.  The sister she sees most days is different than the one who had made fun of her for running around in Jon’s too-big baseball jerseys, the girl who’d always told her she had hat hair and smelled funny and should consider using deodorant next time she played.  The Sansa she sees now is…what, more broken?  That hardly seemed a fair thing to say.  Older?  More aware?  Guiltier? Whatever it is, it’s not the same, and that almost makes it harder because separating the two almost feels impossible, and yet, how could she not?

She thinks of Sansa drunk and saying “I was awful to you growing up, and I’m sorry.”  Did it count when you were drunk?  She knows there are two schools of thought on the matter—the one that says it doesn’t count if you’re drunk and the one that says that drunken confessions are the most honest and profound of them all.  Which one is it?  And does that even apply to sibling relationships, or is it just relationship relationships?   

Bran’ll know.  Bran knows everything.  Jon might know too, if he actually comes south the way they’ve been trying to get him to.  She wonders what her soulmate would say.  She wonders if she should bring it up at all.  Her sister not being nice to her growing up hardly seemed the sort of thing that even remotely compares to not being wanted by your own mother.  And besides, it’s…she doesn’t know.  There’s something strange about it, like she feels like she can’t tell it or something—like it’s not how they are.  But shouldn’t they be that way?  Shouldn’t she feel as though she can always be perfectly open and honest?  Why does she feel as though she’s hiding parts of herself from him, as though she’s protecting herself the way she did when she was eleven and had learned that sometimes, if you didn’t cross Sansa, she wouldn’t be spiteful and make fun of how your arms are all muscled like a boy’s from playing softball too much.

She hears Nymeria first when she rings the doorbell, scratching at the door and whining and a moment later, it’s swinging open and there’s her mother, looking like death but smiling so warmly as she hugs Arya.  “Hello my baby,” she whispers into Arya’s hair.  She almost hadn’t realized she missed her mother but holding her there and feeling her warmth as Nymeria raises herself onto her hind paws and tries to lick Arya’s face.   

“Hi Mama.”  And she’s home, she’s really home, even if only for the weekend.  When she releases her mother she turns to Nymeria, crouching down and letting the dog lick her face and make delighted little yipping noises. 

“I’ve been making your favorite for dinner,” her mother smiles down at her.  “And your father is on his way home from work.  And Bran should be back soon.” 

“Rickon?” Arya asks.  

“He’s finishing his math homework.”  And Arya grins. 

“Turning into a mathematician, is he?” 

“No.” 

And Arya laughs.  She climbs the stairs two at a time, Nymeria right behind her and pokes her head into Rickon’s room.  He’s asleep on his bed, his auburn hair a tangled mess, and she laughs and mutters, “Math homework,” to herself before going and throwing herself onto her bed, Nymeria leaping up and joining her while she drifts into a dreamless sleep. 

* * *

She comes downstairs yawning to find Jon sitting on the couch with a cup of tea, and Bran telling him some sort of story.  “…and it’s weird, all right?  Like, trees don’t—Arya!” 

She grins and Jon gets up and gives her a hug, mussing her hair, and Bran wheels his chair over to her so that she can give him a hug next.  The problem is that Jon doesn’t let go of her.  “No,” he says when she squirms away. 

“But Bran!” she whines, sounding like Nymeria, who has followed her down the stairs and is trying to get a hug as well. 

“No,” Jon repeats. 

“Meanie,” Bran huffs and Jon laughs and loosens his grip only slightly so that Arya, still in his arms, can twist around and give Bran a half-hug. 

“I’ll give you a better one later,” she says.  Bran grins up at her. 

“You’d better.” 

“I promise.” 

“Ok.” 

She sits down on the couch with Jon, tucking her legs up against her chest and leaning against him while Nymeria sits on the floor, wagging her tail expectantly.  Mom had really done a good job with her once Arya was gone, keeping her off the furniture.   

“What was it you were saying about trees?” Arya asks Bran, and he rolls his eyes. 

“It’s not even a thing,” he says. 

“Oh really?” 

“It was a dream, all right?  I dreamed that the trees were talking to me.  And then Jojen showed up and he couldn’t hear them.  It was just strange.” 

“I wonder what your subconscious was telling you,” Arya grins.  “Don’t dreams reflect the subconscious or something?”  Her stomach twists because if that’s true, then clearly her subconscious is telling her something she doesn’t want to admit about Gendry. 

“That I’m a god, obviously,” deadpans Bran.  “The very roots of the world speak to me and tell me their secrets.  What else could it mean?” 

“If I had to pick a god, it would probably be you,” Jon teases, lifting his tea to his lips.  “Ow.” 

“Hot?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Be careful.  You’ll burn yourself.” 

“Boil myself more like.  I’m not actually on fire,” Jon mutters, putting his tea back down. 

“Well, when I’m a god, I’ll smile kindly upon you,” says Bran in mock austerity.  “You I shall protect from the flames that would burn you and the water that would boil you like a lobster, and—” 

“What about me?” Arya asks.  “How will you protect me?”  

Bran draws one corner of his lip into the center of his mouth, considering.  “I don’t know yet.  I’ll get back to you.” 

Arya pressed a hand to her heart and put on an expression of mock outrage.  “I’m insulted.  You haven’t thought of how you’ll protect me from the world when you’re a god?” 

“What matters is that I do it, not that I have it planned. I mean, look at Jon.  He’s just asking to get shanked or something.” 

“I am not!” Jon sputters, affronted. 

“Are you questioning me, the all-knowing god?” Bran asks, sitting up a little straighter in his chair. 

“I just want a second opinion is all,” Jon grumbles and Arya grins and snuggles into him.  He’s much thinner than Gendry is, and she’s used to snuggling into Gendry on trains, on busses, while watching Dragons games in the student union, but Jon is familiar, and Jon is home, and she’s so glad he came south for the weekend because Winterfell isn’t Winterfell without Jon. 

* * *

“Your game is at ten tomorrow morning?” Dad asks as he takes a plate of chocolate cookies from Rickon and takes three. 

“Ned—three?” Mom asks, half-exasperated, half-amused. 

“We all know I’m going to have them anyway,” he says lightly, passing the plate to Jon, who only takes one. 

“No wonder the children have your sweet tooth,” she sighs. 

“Yeah, ten,” Arya cuts in. “I need to be there by eight thirty to warm up properly though.” 

“Well,” Dad checks his watch, “It’s eight thirty now, so off to bed with you missy.  Twelve hours of rest should do, shouldn’t it?” 

Arya rolls her eyes and he smiles.   “And the game is at seven?” she asks him. 

“Yes.  We’ll want to be there by six forty five since no one gives a shit about the Dragons,” Bran says. 

“Please be sure to repeat that to Gendry as often as possible so that he gets the hint and starts liking a real team,” Arya says.  “That’s what you can do with your god powers.  Make Gendry like the Wolves.” 

“God powers?” asks Dad, confused.  “Has Bran got god powers?” 

“Yes,” says Bran seriously.  “I do.” 

“Ah.” 

“I didn’t know I’d given birth to a god,” Mom says benignly, lifting a cookie to her lips.  “Is that why you were so difficult—twenty hours of labor and the cord wrapped around your neck?” 

“Probably,” Bran says cheerfully.  “We gods are hard to give birth to.  How does it make you feel, being the mother of a god?” 

Mom munches her cookie, swallows, and says, “Well, I feel like most mothers only want what’s best for their children—perhaps mothering multi-millionaires or kings.  I, clearly, aspired to more.” 

“There’s time yet for Robb to become a king,” Jon says quietly.  “If he has his way, he might just manage.” 

“Over my dead body,” Dad says.  “Robb should know better than to go into politics.” 

“You try telling him that,” Mom sighs.  “He does seem to be headed that way.” 

Dad rolls his eyes and turns to Arya.  “Can I at least rely on you to become a professional ball player and get me free season tickets?  I think it’s only fair, given how much money I’ve shelled out on tickets for you.” 

“I’ll see what I can do,” she grins.  “At the very least, if Gendry gets recruited, I can make him give you free ones.” 

“This Gendry,” Mom begins, and her stomach sinks, “Don’t look at me that way—I’m just curious.  He’s a friend of yours from school?” 

“Yes,” Arya says stiffly.  “A friend.”   

Jon coughs and she kicks him under the table.  Bran, at least, has the good sense not to say a word.   

“And how did you meet this friend?” Dad asks. 

“He’s on the baseball team.  We play catch and talk about life,” Arya says.   

“I like him already,” says Dad.  He breaks his cookie in half and pops it into his mouth.  “I approve.  Well chosen.” 

“Ned—they’re friends,” says Mom.  “Don’t say things like that.”  Jon coughs again and the corner of Bran’s lips twitch and Arya glares at both of them. 

“What?” Rickon asks, looking between his siblings. 

“Nothing, Rickon,” Bran says benignly. 

“It’s not nothing.  You were all making faces.”  Rickon’s frowning between the three them.  “That’s not fair—what’s going on?” 

Then Jon bursts out laughing, and Arya glares at him because he’s  _such_  a traitor, and she sees Mom looking between him and her and connecting the dots because her mother’s mouth forms a silent “oh” and she pushes her seat away from the table and begins collecting plates.  “Arya, will you help me clear the table?” 

She does, if only to get away from Rickon’s continued “Come on, tell me”s and when she and her mother are in the kitchen loading the dishwasher, mom says, “I hope you’re using protection.” 

“What?  No—I mean—it’s not like that, mom.”   

“It’s not?” Her mother’s up to her elbows in her yellow cleaning gloves as she scrubs the pan she’d sued to cook the chicken.  “What is it, then?” 

Arya looks at the kitchen door, hoping that Rickon or, worse, dad won’t come in.  “It’s just dreams, all right?  I’ve been having some dreams about him.” 

“Dreams?” her mother asks slowly. 

“Not that kind of dream,” Arya says quickly.  Gods but it would be easy if it were.  But Gendry had his soulmate—his distant, nice soulmate and dreams with her and everything.  “The…the other kind of dream.” 

Her mother opens her mouth and raises her eyebrows, then decides that she’s not going to say a thing and closes it again.  “Well,” she’s scrambling to find something else to say, Arya can see it, “Well, no harm can come of that.” 

“No,” Arya agrees firmly.  “No harm can come of it.” 

* * *

She goes into Bran’s room after she finishes cleaning and finds him sitting on his bed with Jojen, who is showing him photos on his phone.  “That’s from Whitetree.” 

“Should there be bumps like that?”  Bran asks, pointing.   

“I think it’s a tree cancer.  Natural.  So…should be? Ideally no.  Abnormal?  Not quite.” 

“Ok.” 

“I’ll show you tonight, when we’re sleeping,” Jojen says, and Bran grins up at him. 

“Can I climb it?”  Arya’s heart jerks for a moment, and she realizes horribly that Bran must be able to walk in their dreams.  Jojen is the only one who sees him walk anymore—walk, and climb, and run, and dance, and everything Bran had done before his accident and that he’ll never do again.

She bites her lip, considering leaving them alone for a moment. Then she realizes she’s being stupid and clears her throat.  “Am I interrupting?” They look up as one, with matching expressions on their faces of happy welcome.   

“Plenty of room,” says Bran, patting the bed on his other side, and she goes and sits next to him.  Nymeria follows her and looks at Bran, as if asking for permission to jump up before she does. 

“Did she just ask for permission?” Arya asks, amused. 

“She and Summer can get into it a bit over my bed.” 

“I feel like there’s some off-color joke to be made about bitches and your bed,” says Jojen.  “That said, I shall not make it, but rather leave it to be inferred.”  Bran elbows him. 

“Thanks for spelling that out for us,” Arya says dryly. 

“Any time.” 

“Here you are,” Jon says, poking his nose around the door.  He cocks his head, and stares at Jojen for a moment.  “When did you get here?” 

“Twenty minutes ago, maybe?” 

“Huh.” Jon comes over and doesn’t ask if there’s room, but flops on the bed.  With both of them in one room, Arya leaps into action. 

“If either of you tell Rickon, I’m cutting ties, I swear I am.” 

Jon laughs and Bran cracks a grin. 

“Tell Rickon what?” Jojen asks. 

“Arya’s having sex dreams about her best friend,” says Bran. 

Jojen blinks, wiggles his head from side to side, then says, “Nice.  Good sex?” 

“Very,” Arya replies.  “Actually—I won’t cut ties.  I’ll just give you both excruciating details.” 

“I won’t tell Rickon,” Bran and Jon say at the exact same time, and it’s Arya’s turn to laugh, though it is more in relief than amusement. 

“What does your soulmate think of this?” Jojen asks quietly, and Bran turns to look at him.  Some people find Bran hard to read, because he’s so measured when he watches people, but Arya’s known him his whole life and she sees the way he sucks his lips almost imperceptibly between his teeth when he’s nervous, the same way he looks down before he lies. 

“He says he’s all right with it,” Arya says slowly.  “I mean…he’s never seemed angry about it, or jealous, but…I don’t know.  I still feel bad.  I feel almost like I’m cheating on him.” 

Jojen looks down at his hands and takes one of Bran’s in his and says, “Well, as long as you’re honest with him, I suppose that’s ok.  I guess you have a more platonic relationship?”  

“Yeah.  We mostly play baseball,” Arya says.  She’s still watching Bran, whose eyes have dropped to Jojen’s hand in his.   

“Well, that’s good, then,” Jojen says.   

“Yeah,” Arya says.  

“Communication with your soulmate is important,” Jon agrees.  “It gets messy fast if you don’t.” 

“Yeah, I know.  Just look at Sans—hey, neither of you have Sandor Clegane’s phone number, do you?”  She’d forgotten until that moment, but they were both there. Jon lifts his head and looks at her confused.  Bran pulls out his phone and begins scrolling through contacts.  “Ned wants it.  He wants to talk to him.” 

Bran looks up.  “Why?”  She wishes he didn’t sound so nervous. 

“Sansa’s…Sansa’s having trouble handling both of them.  And I think Ned’s worried about it and wants to try and work it out with him.” 

“Sandor’ll love that,” Jon says dryly. 

“Yeah—it’s here.  I’ll text it to you,” says Bran. 

“Thanks.” 

Her phone buzzes and she texts the number to Ned with a note, and then settles down next to Bran again.  Arya takes longer than she should, maybe, sending Ned the contact information, and her hands are trembling slightly, because she knows she should ask them, they’re both here, but so is Jojen and she doesn’t know Jojen, even if Jojen is Bran’s soulmate. 

“I don’t think Sansa’s all right,” Arya whispers.  “I think she’s pretending, and pretending really well. But I don’t think she’s all right at all.  I think this thing with them is screwing her up,” she rolls her eyes at herself, “More, I mean, than the level of usual human screwed-up-ness.”

Bran’s lips twitch in a frown, and Jon twists to watch Arya, but doesn’t say anything.

“Yeah, I’ve gotten that vibe,” Bran says.  “She sends me emails sometimes when she wakes up and…yeah. I’m worried.  She’s always been bad at taking care of herself.”

“She was drunk in my room last week,” Arya says, not looking at either of them. “Drunk and apologizing and saying she had been awful to me growing up.”

“Well, she sort of was,” Jon says sharply, and Arya raises her eyebrows at him.

“I know that, thank you,” she says coolly.  “Having lived through it and everything.”  Jon raises his hands defensively, as if to say ‘just saying’ as he lies back down and stared at the ceiling.

“I—” Bran says, “I don’t…Yeah.  I mean…yeah.”  He is frowning, and Jojen is watching him intently, as if drinking him in. No—not as if drinking him in, as if Bran were a pop fly and Jojen was ready to catch him if he fell. Arya suddenly wishes she hadn’t brought it up at all, and feels hot shame burning in her.  Bran, of all of them, has the easiest relationship with everyone, even Robb who gets off on feeling like he was the eldest.  Talking about this sort of thing…it hurts him, she knows. It’s hard, talking about the flaws in someone you don’t experience but someone else does acutely.

“Yeah,” Arya says, in an attempt to close the hurt.  She’ll push a lot of things to a confrontation, but Bran sitting there looking sad because of something that she brought up is a little more than she can bear.  “It’s—”

“I know she feels guilty about it,” Bran cuts in.  “I know she feels bad.  It took her a while to be aware of it.  I think this whole thing with Ned and Sandor…she’s gone into therapy, yeah?  And they talk about things she’s pushed down and hidden from herself and kept at a distance and part of that…part of that’s you.  And she doesn’t know how to handle that, like that’s pretty crushing to her I think.” He looks sad as he says it. “Gods I shouldn’t be saying this,” he mutters.  “It’s not mine to tell.”  He turns away from Arya and rests his forehead into Jojen’s shoulder, and Jojen reaches up and rubs Bran’s head.

“Crushing?” Arya asks quietly.  She doesn’t expect him to answer, and he doesn’t, and she looks over at Jon who is still frowning. 

“Sansa’s a good person,” Jon says quietly.  “And sometimes good people learn about the shit they’ve pulled and it hurts a lot.  So she’ll carry it as a weight for the rest of her life.  Or she won’t.  I don’t know.  I’m not her. But all the same, I don’t imagine for a second it feels good—realizing how she used to treat you, pushing you around, pushing you out, making you feel like you don’t belong in places where you do, realizing the effect that had.”

“The effect that had?” Arya rolls her eyes.  “I’m fine, Jon.”

“Oh yeah?” Jon says and when he opens his eyes she sees her own stubbornness mirrored in them.  “Why can’t you see your soulmate’s face then?”

“What?” Arya demands, suddenly defensive.  “What’s that got to do with anything?”

Jon casts a glance at Bran, who looks so forlorn that Arya is almost scared of whatever it is that he’s thinking.  His hand is in Jojen’s and his knuckles are white he’s gripping his soulmate’s hand so hard.

“Let’s try it this way,” Jon says, and his voice sounds different now—emptier.  “Sansa spent a huge part of your youth making you feel like you didn’t belong, right?  Belong here,” he gestures around the house, “like you didn’t fit in with the way that family should be.  Right?”

“I wouldn’t—” Arya begins.

“I would,” Jon says. “She stopped.  Somewhere along the line.  But she did the damage, right.  And there’s a reason that there’s so much study of dream psych, right?  Because sometimes…people’s psychology plays into it.  You’re great at making friends, at pushing out and finding new people to bring to you.  It’s one of the best things about you.”  He reaches over and musses her hair, as if hoping that the gesture will make whatever he’s about to say sting less.  “But...you didn’t feel safe in a space that should have kept you safe.  You didn’t feel ever like you could thrive _here._ You had to go out to do that—softball, school, whatever.  Right?”

Arya doesn’t say anything, she’s just staring at Jon, holding her breath, knowing what he’s about to say before he even says it.

“So that’s it, right? You can’t see your soulmate’s face because you don’t know how to feel safe in spaces where you _should_ feel safe.”

“So?  So?  Like you said, Sansa’s not like that anymore and—and I have never felt anything _but_ love from you—both of you and Robb and Rickon and mom and dad and—”

“Because the negative can damage, Arya.  It can shape in ways you don’t understand.  So yeah—maybe there are times you feel happy and safe here, sitting on this bed with me and Bran.  But—”

“But it doesn’t trump feeling left out when you were younger.  Feeling lesser when you were a kid,” Bran says sadly. “Even _I_ remember you like that, Arya.  And it’s not who you are now—not by any means. But the pattern…”

“The pattern is still there,” Jon says.  “So what if Sansa feels bad about it?  She and you will work it out.  You’re big girls now, and she’s aware of her shit.  But you can’t see his face because you don’t feel like you deserve to for some sick reason.”

Arya bites her lip and looks down at her hands, and, a thought she hated thinking swept through her. _He doesn’t tell me about things unless I push him.  He keeps me shut out._

And more than anything else that Jon had said, that makes her want to cry. 

* * *

His face is still scratched out when Arya finally falls into an uneasy sleep, but his body relaxes slightly.  “Wondered if you were coming,” he calls out to her, throwing a ball. It’s a softball.

“Sorry—I’m at home tonight and I had a long conversation with my brothers,” she says, her throat tight. 

“Gotcha,” he replies, hefting the bat, and lining up at the plate, shimmying his hips as he does.  “I thought maybe you’d gone off to sleep somewhere else…dream of something else…”

“Did you summon this one?” she asks.  He’d once said that she was the one who brought them to the field in their dreams. 

“Yeah,” he says and she can hear the grin in his voice.  “You said you have a game tomorrow, and you always like pitching before a game.”

She forces a smile and steps and throws and he swings and misses.

“True,” she says.  The ball feeder appears next to her and he doesn’t bother going after the ball he just missed. “True.  I won’t go easy on you,” she says.  Something in the back of her mind laughs bitterly, pushing away the thoughts from her conversation with Bran and Jon, so that her heart beats softball once again, beats softball until she can figure all this out.

“So you’ve been going easy on me, have you?”

“Yes.”

“Bring it.”  And he lines up again, his hips shifting back and forth.  She throws; he misses.

“Where would we be if I hadn’t had a game?” she asks him.

“What?” She pitches another ball. It connects with a crack this time, and he takes off for first.

“You said you know I like pitching before a game.  And I have a game tomorrow.  But you came here first.  You dreamed first.”

“It must be a subconscious thing, ” he calls unconcernedly from between second and third.    She bites her lip, and wishes he hadn’t said that, wishes he’d said something else. 

So she says, “Yeah but—but what if you could choose, right?  Where would you take me?”

He touches up at home and goes to collect the bat from where he had flung it after hitting the ball, entirely out of habit.  “I dunno,” he says.  “Never thought about it, really.”

“Is there any place dear to your heart?  Somewhere from when you were…” she cuts off, not sure if she should even mention his youth.

“Nah,” he says.  “Places from when I was young were crap.  Honestly…honestly this stadium means more to me than anything else, because you’re here.”

Her throat closes and she swallows, trying to open it again. He lines up again, hips swiveling, and she pitches.

“You’re the first person in my life who’s made me feel valued,” he says as his bat strikes the leather of the ball, sending it sailing away. He doesn’t run this time, and Arya doesn’t even bother watching where the ball goes because she’s too busy staring at where his face should be.  _Please just appear_ , she begs her mind.  _Please.  Who are you?_ “I didn’t really have that before you.  So yeah—this place. This is the special place for me. You going to throw that?”

She does and it whizzes past him and the wire mesh behind home rings out with the sound of the ball. 

* * *

She’s pitched a hitless six innings and she is laughing because the chants of “Wolves, Wolves, Awooo!” from the stands is so familiar, so like playing in her little league, so like home, that she finds it probably more invigorating than the other team, who hail from all across the kingdoms. They’re up by three points, Lyanna having hit a two run home run and Joy having hit Cynthea in. But halfway through the seventh, a girl named Jeyne Poole sends a ball deep into right and sprints past first to second and there stands go wild, and she sees Ravella and Syrio calling a time out and coming to the mound.

“You getting tired?” Ravella asks.  She’s never been a gentle person, but when she looks Arya up and down, she feels warmth.  “You’ve played splendidly, Arya.”

Arya shrugs her left shoulder, and winces.  It’s getting sore.  She needs to ice it.  She looks out over the stands and sees Jon and Bran and Dad and Rickon and even Mom sitting just behind home plate.  Dad’s whispering something to Mom—probably explaining the time out. And, four rows behind them, and a little bit to the left, she sees the baseball team, staring at her intently.  Gendry’s leaning forward, his hands resting on his knees and she feels as though she can see the blue of his eyes, even though he’s too far away for that.

“I can finish the inning,” she says.  “Then yeah—I think I should stop.”

“You’re sure?” Syrio asks her, and she nods.

“It’s one more out.  I can do it.”

He nods and he and Ravella return to the bench, and Arya kicks the dirt underneath her feet and waits for the ump to give her the all clear.  Then she swings the ball into motion. She sees the ball connect with the bat before she hears it and her heart sinks.  Poole is on third, sprinting, sprinting around the bases and Arya sees the ball bounce once on the ground before popping into Elia’s mitt. She hears the cheer that means Poole has scored, and Arya kicks the dirt under her feet before she hears an “oh,” run through the crowd.  She jerks her head up and sees Lyanna and Alysanne walking towards the bench, Shireen trotting after them to pat Alysanne on the shoulder.

“Tagged her out,” winks Alysanne as Arya cocks her head.

“Bless you,” Arya sighs and she heads in and settles on the bench next to Weasel. She smiles at the girl, who smiles weakly back.  “Nobody’s perfect,” she shrugs and winces.  “Ah fuck.”

“Need ice?” asks Weasel.

“Could you?”

“Absolutely.” And the girl gets up to fetch some. 

Their two run lead is enough.  Eleyna shuts Winterfell out for the next two innings and, Shireen scores again, and they win four-to-one in an upset that none of them would have dreamed possible, and Arya’s jumping up and down with the rest of the team, throwing herself into one-armed hugs and letting the girls muss her hair in appreciation because even if they lose the season, they’ve won Winterfell. 

* * *

If the field had been loud at Winterfell University, it is louder when she, Jon, Bran, Jojen, Rickon, Dad, and Gendry arrived at the Winter Stadium, the rumble of thousands of people getting ready to watch the Wolves-Dragons game. It is the third game of their series, and the Wolves are looking for a shutout, and Arya had spent most of the evening happily explaining to Gendry how and why the Dragons would end up thoroughly pummeled when they took the field that night.

“And what on earth makes you think I don’t know all of these statistics already?” he asks her as they settle into their seats at the end of the row. “I do actually follow this game quite closely, and everything.”

“I’m just reminding you that you’re stupid,” Arya says lightly.

“I’m not, actually,” Gendry says dryly.

“Why would you support the losing side then?” she asks.  “Especially when they’re new to the league. You do not owe the Dragons your loyalty.”

“It’s the principle of the thing,” Gendry says huffily.  “And do you honestly think that you berating me for it is going to make me change my mind?”

“It should,” she says.

“Yeah, well.  Too bad. If anything, it’s making me more stubbornly cling to my own opinions.  So well done you, making me a more devout Dragons fan.”

Arya gapes at him in mock horror, before sniffing and turning to Jon, who is sitting between her and Dad.  “I have nothing further to say to this lout,” she says to Jon.

“Lout?” Jon demands, raising his eyebrow at her.  There’s a twinkle in his eye and she _knows_ he’s laughing at her and it’s all he can do to keep from mussing her hair and she thinks about shoving him, except then Gendry would ask what Jon had done to merit a shove, and Gendry would know if she was lying.

“Lout.”

“Trying out synonyms for idiot, are we?” Gendry asks, laughing.

“I like a variation in my insults.  I aim for a higher quality of needling.”  Jon sucks his lips between his teeth in an expression that says “I say nothing but you know what I’m thinking,” more clearly than if he’d shouted those words to the wind.  Arya glares at him and faces forward because right now, she can’t stand looking at either of them.

“Well, good on you.  I confess myself impressed,” Gendry snorts.

“Thank you.”

“Moron.”

She elbows him and winces again because she’d forgotten how sore her shoulder was and Gendry hisses.  “Don’t do that—you don’t want to cause any damage.  Keep it still.”

She wrinkles her nose at him, but doesn’t respond, because a little girl from Winterfell is standing next to home plate and singing the national anthem and the stadium rises to its feet.  A moment later, the first pitch is thrown out, and the game begins.

Though Arya hates to have to admit it—it’s a good game.  The Dragons put up a fight before being soundly roasted by the Wolves.

“If they hadn’t swapped out Lannister for Merryweather,” sighs Gendry in the back seat of the car as Dad gives him a ride back to the hotel.

“They couldn’t have known that, though,” Dad says.  “But, of course, once they did, that was it, wasn’t it? Couldn’t get back into the groove of it.”

“Ripe for an upset, they were,” says Arya.

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Newcomers.”

“Shut up I get it, all right?”

“You know—it hurts you because it’s true.  It’d hurt you less if you liked a _good_ team.”

“Tell me something,” Gendry demands heatedly.  “ _If_ I switched teams to, say, the Wolves, what would you think of me then?  Flaky?  Disloyal?”

“Possessing good taste, really,” Arya says, and Gendry rolls his eyes.

“Look—my team’s the Dragons.  And maybe it’ll cause me agony for the rest of my life, but it also might not. Deal with it.”

“Looks like someone’s defensive for liking a crap team,” Arya guffaws, and Gendry faces the front of the car. 

“Is she always this way, or is it just around me?” he asks Dad, and Arya snorts.

“I’d say she’s often this way, but if she’s _always_ this way around you, then it’s an abnormally high amount.”

“Great,” Gendry mutters, and Arya reaches over and rubs his head the way that Jon rubs hers sometimes.  His hair is very wiry under her fingers, and feels just the way it does in her dreams when she’s curled around him.

“Take heart—it means she likes you,” and Dad winks at her in the rearview mirror. 

She climbs into the front seat of the car once they’ve deposited Gendry and are driving back to the house.

“He seems a nice boy,” Dad says, and Arya shifts in her seat. Is Dad going to do this too? Gods, she thought it was bad that Mom had brought up using protection.

“He is,” she says, “Dad—he’s—”

“His game’s tomorrow?” Dad asks.

Arya blinks.  “Yeah—it is. Usually they’re at the same time as the softball ones, but the Winterfell baseball team had an invitational.” She smiles almost without meaning to. When she’d been little, she’d gone to invitational games.  She had even played in some, because they didn’t mind it if girls played—they just wanted to get local kids outside and moving.

“I might go watch,” he says neutrally.  “He strikes me as a slugger, and I want to see it.”

“He is,” Arya grins.  “There are recruiters looking at him to play in the big leagues right now.  He’s really good.”  Then she frowns.  “Well, I mean…that’s what they say.  I don’t usually get to watch their games.”

“No?”

She shakes her head.  “Sometimes I hear them, though.  From the distance, or whatever.  Or if they’re on the next field over I can sometimes watch while we’re on the bench but…not usually.”

“That seems like it would hardly foster comradery between teams,” Dad says.

“True,” she agrees.  “It just kind of works out that way though.”

“How did you become friends, then?”

She looks out the window for a moment, at the dark shadow of the trees, the stars poking through the dark, breaking through the black and navy-blue texture of the sky.  How _had_ she and Gendry become as close as they had, anyway? “We played catch,” she says. “Starting my freshman spring. He asked if I wanted to play catch, and I did.  So we played.”

She heard her father make a slight clicking noise in the back of his throat.

“Well, I’m glad you have a friend like him.  He…he reminds me of Robert.  And Robert’s the best friend I ever had.  I’d want you to have a friend like that.”

She smiles and reaches over to pat his arm, wincing at the movement of her shoulder.  “Thanks, Dad.”

* * *

Her dreams are full of Gendry that night—Gendry, Gendry, Gendry, his lips on her neck, his hands at her breasts, in her hair, cupping her ass as he grinds up against her, grunting and moaning.  And Arya—Arya’s clutching him, holding his face, kissing his lips, trailing her feet up and down his legs as he lies her down on a bed in a room that’s almost a replica of her dorm room and he fucks her, quick and hard, and moaning her name and calling her beautiful and perfect and telling her how good she feels as he comes inside her.

They lie like that for a while, Arya holding onto him, running her fingers through wiry hair, breathing in that pine scent of his deodorant, feeling as his cock goes limp inside her, and then he shifts, draws himself down the bed, settles himself between her legs, hooking them over his shoulders as he licks at her cunt.  His tongue is hot, his breath soft against her flesh, and she wonders if he tastes himself mixed in there, or if her dreams aren’t that detailed.  Why would the Gendry she’s dreamed up taste his cum mixed in her juices? 

She supposes he must, though, supposes her brain has made good on living out her every fantasy because he pauses, and looks up her, blue eyes just above the thatch of dark hair between her legs, and he whispers, “We taste good together,” and she sits up and kisses the top of his head, her lips in his wiry hair as his lips return to her.  She falls back against the bed, reaching her hands up, finding the headboard, wishing her arm weren’t sore from pitching because it is, still, and that’s ruining the dream and gods it’s a good dream, such a good dream, so good and—

She wakes with a jolt, her cunt throbbing as if he’d actually been licking her, her shoulder twisted underneath her and gods how stupid could she be, rolling onto it in her sleep, right when she’d been about to come, too. She would have loved to have seen his face, to look down at him lazily as her heart stilled and her body felt warm, pulling him up her again, so she could stick her tongue in his mouth and taste them both too.

* * *

She sits between Weasel and Shireen on the bleachers for the boy’s game, her backpack at her feet, ready for her to get on the bus to the train station after the game has ended.  She wishes she didn’t have to leave so soon, even if she’ll be back in a few short weeks once exams are over.  She cheers and whistles along with the rest of the team as the boys take to the field, catcalling Lem, because that’s what you do, and chanting “Jack be lucky, Jack be lucky!” as Jack comes to the plate.

The first half of the inning is over faster than Arya would have liked, but the second half is over even faster with Kyle striking the first three out as easily as if he were going for a stroll along the beach. And when the second inning begins, Anguy gets on base, as does Luke, and then it’s Gendry up at bat, and Arya feels herself smiling as he approaches the plate, knocking some dirt from his cleats and lifting his bat and lining up.

Her heart stops—not proverbially or euphemistically or whatever, it actually legitimately stops she can’t hear it or feel it for a second as she stares at him because she’d know that hip shift anywhere.

She’d spent years making fun of it every night, know it because when you can’t stare at someone’s face because it’s all scratched out or blurry, you notice the way he moves his hips and—gods—just how muscled his ass is.

Oh, she’d kill him, she really would kill him.  She’s hot and cold and blushing and shivering all at once because that’s it—that’s _it_ —of course it’s _him_ how stupid could she be?  They have the same deodorant, and their voices sound the same, and them always sitting together on busses and trains and of _course_ he wouldn’t care if she’s having sex dreams about…He must think her a right idiot, not working it out and oh gods, she’s going to be sick, isn’t she.

She doesn’t even notice that when he swings, it doesn’t make a crack like the usual crack, the I’m-sending-this-ball-towards-Astapor crack.  She doesn’t even notice as Weasel ducks down, or as Shireen shrieks “Look out!” because she’s staring at him and she’s locked eyes with him and he’s only fifty feet away and she can see the way his expression seems to melt from an “ah well,” to a “what’s going on” to a “you’ve got it, haven’t you,” to a “fuck” and she sees his lips move in slow motion as he says her name and something collides hard with her head.


	7. Chapter 7

She’s alone in their field, sitting on the pitcher’s mound, not caring that there’ll be a big brown splotch on the butt of her jersey because she’s laughing too hard, laughing even though something hurts and nothing’s funny, but she can’t stop laughing.

* * *

 

She comes to on a stretcher, and the sky is a little too bright and Weasel and Syrio and her dad are walking next to her.  It’s Weasel who notices her first.

“She’s awake,” she says and everyone looks at her, and Arya feels as though their faces definitely shouldn’t be that big and she faints again.

* * *

 

She has a concussion—a pretty big one, actually, the doctor says, and she really shouldn’t be getting on a bus to head to a train to go back down to Harrenhal, but she is, with an ice pack the size of her backpack to press against her skull.  It’s cold—very cold, cold enough to numb the throbbing, but not quite cold enough to numb the confusion in her head.  She’s on the bus before the boys have finished showering after their game, and she makes Weasel sit with her, and she puts in headphones and closes her eyes and props the bag of ice between her head and the window so she doesn’t have to hold it. She is unsure of a lot of things, but the one thing she is quite sure of is that she doesn’t want to see Gendry at all right now, or think about him or imagine the way he’d looked when he’d realized she’d put it all together, or the way he looked like in her—their, fuck it was _their_ dreams, wasn’t it—last night when he’d looked up after tasting his own cum inside her, like it was the best thing he’d ever tasted and like she was the most incredible thing he’d ever seen.

No, she doesn’t want to think about it at all.  She wants to think about how cold that ice pack was, colder than a winter that could last a thousand years.

“Arya?” she hears him but pretends not to.  She doesn’t open her eyes, and doesn’t make any indication that she’s heard him at all.  “Is she asleep?” she hears him ask Weasel.

“I don’t think so.  I think she’s just ignoring you for hitting her on the head.”  She wants to elbow Weasel, but that will be giving in and showing that she’s listening, so she continues to focus on just how bloody freezing the ice pack is.

“R-right,” she hears Gendry say.  “Well…Arya, when you’re done ignoring me…yeah.”

She ignores him when they get off the bus and Weasel helps her sling her backpack onto her back.  She ignores him when they get on the train, even though he’s sitting right in front of her and Weasel and she pretends not to notice the way that he periodically looks at her reflection in the glass as they speed south, she ignores him when he falls asleep and his breathing becomes even, and relaxed, and she knows it would be too easy to talk to him privately by just falling asleep too, so she doesn’t.  She stays awake the full eight-hour trip south, and when she goes back to her dorm room, she downs energy drinks because she refuses to be asleep at the same time that he is, no matter what her head is doing, no matter what because she doesn’t want to look him in the face right now, because she’s sure, when she slips into a dream, that it will be his face, no matter what she dreams of.

* * *

She doesn’t go to class the next day.  She emails her professors and tells them she’s got a concussion and is taking the day off to take care of herself.  She probably should be doing that anyway, in truth, so she doesn’t feel bad.  And when she drifts of to sleep, it’s dreamless.  Dreamless and perfect and when she wakes up her head doesn’t hurt as much.

The problem is that without her head hurting, it makes it a little harder to avoid thinking about Gendry.  So he’d known it was her the whole time, had he?  She knew he’d known when they played—he’d told her as much. “Clear as day” he’d said when she’d asked if he could see her face.  But when they’d…she gulped.  She had enjoyed them so much.  They had been fun, even if she’d felt guilty about them…guilty. He must have been laughing his head off at her, feeling guilty for fucking him in her dreams while…And if they’d shared those dreams…that time he’d made her come three times in her sleep…had that been a dream or had that been Gendry, because she was pretty sure she knew which one it was and…He’d asked her if she could see his face after the first one.  He’d asked her, and she hadn’t been able to.  Had he been hoping that that made a difference? Had he thought that that dream as a celebration of some sort?  A moment of joyful “I know who you are” so unlike the one she’d had watching his game.

Gods, that fucking hip shake.  But when she couldn’t see his face, she supposed she had to notice the way his torso tapered down to his hips, the way he crouched.  She had been right—he did play in real life.

Confusion bubbled in her as she stumbled to a dining hall with Beth, picking at her food before going back up to bed.  It was early, and Syrio had given her express instructions that she wasn’t allowed at practice until she didn’t feel shaky anymore.

She finds Sansa waiting outside her room, holding a box of chocolates and looking concerned.

“Are you supposed to be up?” she asks as Arya unlocks her bedroom door.

“How’d you know?” she asks.

“Well, if Dad hadn’t called me saying that I was to check in on you and let him know how you’re doing, I imagine Ned would have told me about the dramatic moment when Gendry’s pop foul hit you square on the head and you were too dumb to get out of the way.”

Arya rolls her eyes, and flops on her bed, Sansa climbing up after her.  “I had some other things on my mind, to be fair.”

“Oh?” Sansa asks dryly. She opens the box of chocolate and presents it to Arya, who picks one with a coconut filling. Sansa takes one with lemon filling.

“Yeah,” Arya says, popping the chocolate into her mouth.  It’s a good balance of chocolate to coconut—subtle and not over powering on either end.  “I’d just realized that Gendry’s my soulmate and was having a bit of a heart attack.”

Sansa’s eyes go wide. “You’re sure?” she breathes.

“Yes.”

“Ah.”

“Yeah, so I wasn’t paying too much attention to the game.”

“I can’t really blame you there,” Sansa sighs.  She leans against the bedroom wall and tucks her knees up to her chin. “How d’you feel? Knowing?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Arya mumbles. 

“You should,” Sansa says. “You really—“

“Look, it happened yesterday, all right?  And it’s all sorts of overwhelming, and I don’t really want to right now.  I’m trying to figure out when to sleep so I don’t dream with him.”

“You don’t want to dream with him?” Sansa’s brows knit together, as though she can’t understand this. “Why not?”

Arya lets out a bitter laugh.  “Don’t you ever want to not dream with yours?”

“Yes but…but mostly so they don’t get…” she frowns and looks at Arya sharply.  “You gave Ned Sandor’s number?  That was you, wasn’t it?”

“What happened?” Arya asks. “Because depending on the outcome it was either me or Bran.”

“So Bran gave you the number?”

“No?”

“You always chew your lip when you lie.”

“Shut up.”

Sansa sighs, and fishes another piece of chocolate out of the box.  “Ned and Sandor apparently had a very long conversation on Saturday night.  It went on for six hours and both seem content with the outcome.”

“Content?” Arya asks.  She reaches over and takes another chocolate out of the box and puts it directly into her mouth.

“That’s Ned’s word. Sandor’s was a little more obscene, but they—” she let out a bitter laugh, “They seem to have worked out how to share me.  As if I’m some sort of toy or something.”

“Isn’t that what you wanted?” Arya asks slowly.  “I thought you wanted them to…to not make demands of each other and whatnot.”

“Yes, but I wanted…never mind.  No. Don’t—never mind. I guess I wanted to be the one who made them see it.  I wanted them to see it for my sake, not for their own.”

“Sansa,” Arya says and she can’t keep the derision out of her tone.  “Do you honestly think either of them would have reached some sort of peaceable solution if they didn’t want it for your sake?  Did you not see what it was doing to you?”

Sansa’s face is very still, and for a moment she looks just like a painting, or a statue, to pristine to be alive.  Then the corner of her lip twists and she’s human again.

“You were ripping yourself in half,” she says.  “I wasn’t even part of it and I could see it. So…so something needed to be done, and it couldn’t just be you doing it, because even if they love you, they need to not hate one another.”

Sansa smiles sadly. “I don’t think they do—not anymore.  Sandor sounded almost like he respected Ned for calling him when I spoke to him earlier today. And it takes a lot for Sandor to actually respect anyone.”

“He respects anyone who cares about you and wants to treat you well,” says Arya. 

“No,” Sansa says, “He respects people who care about me, and want to treat me well, and who don’t want to take me away from him.  He’s selfish about me.  And I am about him. I’d never forgive either of them for trying to steal me away from the other. Gods, I’d probably start hating them for trying.

“I think so long as they respect one another, though, it won’t happen.  So long as…so long as they know the other isn’t going to try and do that damage…it might be ok.”  Sansa smiles a small smile and takes another piece of chocolate, holding it to her lips before saying, “New patterns.  Small inroads.  Baby steps.”

“Here here,” Arya agrees, and they are silent for a time, munching on their chocolates as the sky slowly goes dark outside.

“You’re going to have to confront him sometime,” Sansa says gently.  “Better now—rip the band-aid off.”

“Not that I don’t see the truth to that,” Arya sighs, “I just…There’s a lot going on and…” She sighs and knows what everyone would say—Bran, and Jon, and her parents, and even Sansa.

“Talk to him. Communicate.” 

“I wanted it to be perfect. Or…not even perfect. I wanted it to be…not like this.” She gulps.  “ _Really_ not like this.  Like…” she fumbles for words for a moment, pushing the constriction in her throat aside. “If it was Gendry the whole time, why didn’t I see it?  It wasn’t supposed to be him.  It was supposed to be a moment of something new, someone new, who was mine and…I mean—I’m not stupid, I know it’s not easy, or like anything from a love story or anything but this…And he lied to me.”  There it is.  He had lied to her.  The whole time that they’d been friends, and the whole time they’d been dreaming together, he had lied to her.  Soulmates aren’t supposed to do that.  _Friends_ aren’t supposed to do that.

“Arya, do you actually read any love stories or romance novels?  Because I promise you, they are exactly like this—confusing and embarrassing and full of things that make you hope would never happen to you—but they do.  They happen to everyone.”

Arya looks at her and her next question comes out sounding more like she’s whining than she intends. “Do I have to?”

Sansa exhales slowly and looks down at the box of chocolates.  They had emptied it at some point.  “Well…I promised myself a while back that I was done commanding you to do things.”  She ducks her head in an apologetic bow.  “I never really understood you, growing up.  And I tried to force you into being more like me.  And that wasn’t a good thing.  It made me mean, and I don’t like to think of myself as a mean person, and I honestly don’t think I am.  But I was mean to you.  I was awful.  And…” Sansa took a shuddering breath, and Arya remembered Bran saying that this—this was pretty much crushing her. “So…so no. I’m not going to say you have to.  I think you should. And I hope you see the difference in those two things.”

Arya’s throat tightens and her heart does something remarkably like swelling, because almost as much as wanting to know who her soulmate was, she felt relief, somehow. This is different. Small inroads. Baby steps.  

They sit like that, quietly for a little while, watching one another carefully.  The Arya yawns.  “Well, I guess I might as well go to sleep then.” Sansa leans over and kisses her cheek, then climbs off the bed and disappears out the door without another word.

* * *

She gets there first, to their field, and she goes and sits in the dugout and waits.  And maybe it’s because it’s a dream and time never really lines up in a dream, or because he wants too talk to her and tried going to bed early, he appears and it’s Gendry—tall and grouchy looking, his face no longer blurry, no longer scratched out.  He sits on the steps of the dugout in front of her, his elbows on his knees.

“Hi,” he says.

“Hi Gendry.” She says his name, in case he doesn’t know, and she watches color rise on his cheeks.

“Yeah…”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” She had thought she would demand it, insist it, shout it maybe even. But her voice is completely calm, calm as still water, hiding everything that’s going on inside her.

“And how would you propose I should have you?” he asks.  His voice rises in pitch as he asks the question.  “Because I thought I was doing the right thing at the time.  Let’s play catch, because we’ve been playing ball in our dreams for ages now.  Let’s sit together on bus rides, because that’s what soulmates do, yeah?  Let’s watch the Dragons games together because even if you think they’re dumb you want to do things with me, don’t you?  Do you know how long it took me to figure out you didn’t know who I was?” He sounds as angry as Arya’s ever heard him.  “At what point do you turn to your best friend and go, ‘hey, so, sorry not to have mentioned it sooner, your soulmate—the one whose face you can’t see and it’s bugging the crap out of you—that’s me.’ You can’t just do that. Dream Psych tells you that. It can distort dreams if you aren’t careful and you were too important to risk fucking things up.”

And Arya laughs—not because it’s funny.  Because it’s the opposite of funny.  “Distort dreams,” she practically screeches while laughing.  “What the fuck does that even mean?  You should have fucking told me.  That’s exactly what you should have done.” She snaps the last bit and he flinches, and part of her feels vindictively pleased at that.  Another part of her wants to bring the words right back into her mouth, to unsay them somehow, because that’s not what she’d meant—she’d never mean that.  She takes a deep breath.  “It’s not my fault. Not at all.   And maybe it would have gone and…it would have gone differently and you wouldn’t have knocked me out at your fucking game because I recognized your dumb hip shimmy.”

He gapes at her for a moment, his jaw slack.  Then he bursts out laughing.  “My hip thing? That was what did it? Bleeding hells.” He’s clutching the cement steps, gasping for air, and she doesn’t know if it’s funny or not until he sputters, “And here I was thinking that I had to literally hit you over the head with a baseball to make you see.” That’s when she begins to laugh again, and this time, she’s laughing because it is funny—this whole thing is a little bit ridiculous.  Far stupider than she would have guessed, or anticipated, or anything, but what was it that Sansa had said about romance novels?

“Can we start this conversation over again?” she asks him.  “Where we’re not mad?  And where we figure it out from the beginning?”

“Yeah,” he sighs, reaching up to dab tears of mirth from his eyes. “Yeah, we can do that.”

“Hi,” Gendry says.

“Hi Gendry,” Arya repeats, and they both sit there nervously, eyes locked on one another and gods, his eyes are blue—like the early morning sky on a clear day.

“Ok—start.”

“Start? You’re the one who knew it was me.”

“Yeah but…”

“No.  You start.”

“Ok.  Ok.  Right,” he shifts uncomfortably.  “You’ve always been you.  Always. When we started playing, it was like…it was the most perfect thing, because there was this pitcher, who was beautiful and funny and loved baseball as much as I did.”

“More than you do,” Arya corrects him.  “You like the Dragons.”

He glares at her, and she gestures at him to continue, remembering what he’d told her in his dreams about switching to the Dragons because his dad was a Wolves fan. “And you didn’t ask any dumb questions about what I saw myself being, or if I thought I could make it playing ball, or…I don’t know.  You just…you just were there for me.  And it was perfect.

“And then, sophomore year, you show up at Harrenhal, a bright eyed little freshman and I thought I was having a seizure or something because you were real—you were there, you were the way you were in our dreams.  Funny, kind, talented, a baseball nut.  Everything.” 

“I remember,” she says smiling wistfully, “I remember you always wanted to sit next to me on the busses and trains.  I thought you were just being friendly.”

Gendry smiles wryly. “Yeah.  I mean, I just sort of assumed…assumed you knew who I was. You never said anything about not being able to see my face or anything in our dreams.”

“I was embarrassed,” she interrupts, “I didn’t know how to say it,”

Gendry nods, and continues. “Anyway, it sucked when I did finally find that out. I overheard you explaining to the team during a bus ride that you didn’t.  It was…shattering, I guess you could say.  Because you were always special to me—always.  And I wasn’t.”

“You were,” she says emphatically.  “You were. You really were. You were always different from them.”

“I got there in the end,” he says, and his smile isn’t wry anymore, more wistful.  “I mean…I got there after a while.  Because it sucked a lot, but then I realized that you still picked me first over everyone else.  And you still were my friend, even if you had no idea who I was. And you…you cared about me more than anyone ever had.  Even without knowing that that was how it was supposed to be, you did. So, I got there. And gods I was so…I dunno…happy? In awe? That you could do that _twice_ where most people couldn’t be bothered for once,” he made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat, “That you could still think more of me than I was used to without…I dunno…And I was like…fuck it.  Let’s see if I can do anything about this.”  He sits up a little straighter, his elbows coming off his knees to rest at his side.  “Because yeah. Because everything. So catch.   I asked if you wanted to play catch. And then you started coming around to watch games with me at the student union.  And then this year, you started seeming frustrated that you didn’t know what I looked like, and you didn’t know who I was, and then—” he lets out a laugh, and it’s bitter again, “And then I fall asleep one night and we’re both almost naked in bed and I thought ‘well this is progress’ since you just kind of went for it and I was so _convinced_ it would be different.”

“But I thought it was a regular dream.”  She feels like she’s in a dream right now.  A dream within a dream.  Is that even possible? She feels like it’s something Bran would know.

“And you thought it was a regular dream,” Gendry agrees. “And the next time we dream together—when we’re not on top of one another, of course—you bring it up, all guilty, like there’s something _wrong_ and yeah—I should have just told you then.  But I was…I was…I didn’t know what the hell was going on.  Why was it that you could see me when we were fucking each other nuts, but not when we were talking, and playing, and when you knew I was your soulmate?”

“I don’t really know,” Arya says.

“I had some theories. I won’t share them. They’re all dumb, I’m sure. But it was confusing as all fuck. So there we are.”

“I was confused too, for what it’s worth,” Arya says.

“Yeah—I know. You told me.  And there was nothing I could do.”

“There was, actually,” Arya retorts.  “You could have _told me_.”

Gendry closes his eyes, and a wistful smile.  “I should have.  I mean, I know that now.  Fuck, I knew it at the time. But…”

“But what?” Arya demands.

He opens his eyes and they’re so blue and so sad, suddenly.  “But I was scared.  What if you had left? What if I told you and you were horrified?  What if I told you and you were disgusted?  What if I told you and you freaked out because those fun dreams you were having about your best friend suddenly got a lot creepier because he knew that you were sharing them, but you didn’t?”

“I wouldn’t have left you,” Arya says. She knows how hard it was for him to admit that fear, because it’s so close to his heart—she’s learned that for both Gendry and her soulmate. “Never.  I might have…It might have been weird, but Gendry,” she leans forward and grabs his knee because she can’t reach his hands. “Gendry, I would never abandon you.  Not ever. I don’t abandon people.”

“I know that,” he says, and his eyes drop from hers to her knees.  “I know that.  That doesn’t make it any less scary though.  If anything—” he rolls his eyes and blushes and she wonders if his face has always been this expressive in dreams.  She feels like she’s been missing out.  “If anything that made it scarier, right? Like fuck—how are you so perfect that you don’t run away from me, even when I’m doing shady shit?”

“Shady?” Arya asks—confused.  “What was shady?”

“The other dreams. The sex ones.  Don’t try and tell me that wasn’t manipulative and gross—but I did it anyway.  The first few were yours—the first one and then the one on the train out to Lannisport, but apart from that…” He took of his baseball cap and ran his hands through his hair.  “I kept telling myself you wanted it.  You certainly seemed to.  I kept telling myself you liked it because fuck you really seemed to.  But…but…”

“I did want it,” Arya shrugs.  It would be lying to pretend otherwise, to pretend that when she slipped into her dreams and she wasn’t here and he was there, she wasn’t thrilled. “I did. But I would have liked to have _known_.  Because that makes them _different_ , Gendry.  Completely different.”

Gendry closes his eyes.   “I know. I really do.  And I’ll never stop kicking myself for not having told you,” he says.  He opens them again, and they’re clouded, and have his eyes always been this expressive? Always as changing as the weather, a window into his soul, his everything?  “Never.  Shady—like I said.”

“It was,” Arya agrees slowly.  “It was.” He looks like he’s waiting for a truck to hit him, like he’s waiting for her to shriek at him, or burst into tears, or run away.  She doesn’t do any of that though.  She doesn’t do anything.  She sits there, leaning against the cement of the dugout and breathes.

Time passes weirdly in dreams. Everyone knows that. So whether they’re sitting there for hours or for seconds, she doesn’t know.  What she does know is that her brain feels heavy in her head, like a sponge that’s been left in the sink too long and is heavy with water.

“What—what are you thinking?” Gendry asks her nervously.  His elbows are back on his knees again, his hands clasped loosely between them.

“I don’t know. Nothing, really,” Arya says. “I just…it’s a lot to process. Everything’s a lot to process. And…” Her voice tapers and she watches him flinch, watches him look nervous, watches as if he’s preparing himself for the worst.  And she doesn’t want to say it—doesn’t because it’ll hurt him, doesn’t because she’s sure, in a few days, or a few weeks at most, it will all be nothing, but right now…But she can’t not tell him, not when the whole point is that he didn’t tell her. “It’s…it’s a lot. That you—either of you, both of you—you lied to me.  It hurts.” Her voice fucking cracks in the middle of it and she could die because his face is frozen but his eyes are so sad.

He swallows, then he nods. “That’s fair. More than.”  He looks down at his hands and she knows he’s kicking himself harder than he ever has before and she wants to comfort him, but she can’t because if she does...what kind of precedent would that set for them?  How far would it go before it was one of them sobbing on the floor at Jack and Luke’s because the other was holding back?

“Yeah,” he says, and he looks up at her.  “I deserve that.” She doesn’t move, doesn’t say a thing, she just watches him carefully.  “I…I’m sorry.”

“I know,” she breathes, and bites her lip. 

“So…I…There’s nothing I can do to make up for that.  At least…nothing besides not doing it again.  Because I won’t.  You know I won’t.”  There’s a tinge of desperation to his voice, and Arya feels her heart constrict.

“Yeah.  I know.  I just…I need to…”

“Yeah,” he agrees quickly. “And I’ll….I’ll give you the space for that.”  He’s looking hopeful now—like this—this he’s sure is the right thing to do, the right thing to say, the right thing for them to be.  And she takes a deep, shaky breath, feeling the way the air quivers in her lungs.

“Thanks.” What else can she say? What else can she ask of him? That’s what she wants. What’s probably best. But…it feels so lonely, somehow. It’s been so long since she spent time apart from him and…

“Want to play?” she asks suddenly.  His mouth opens in surprise, then he chances a smile.

“Yeah—yeah, that’d be…be great.”

She forces a grin and gets to her feet, grabbing the mitt that had materialized on the bench beside her.

When he lines up at home, she groans.

“What is it?” he calls quickly.

“Your fucking hips.”

And he laughs, the sound of it makes everything seem right, everything seem perfect, because Gendry is here, and Gendry is hers and not some unknown girl’s, but at the same time…it’s Gendry laughing across the field, and he’d lied to her the whole time.


	8. Chapter 8

She wakes up feeling exhausted—not physically, but mentally, as if opening her eyes and facing the world is significantly more than she’s capable of handling at any point in the future.  But she hauls herself out of bed and to class, focusing on the school work she had put aside since before they went north.  She doesn’t go to practice again, more because she needs to catch up and less because her head is still hurting, and when she sinks at last into sleep again, it’s past two in the morning and she finds Gendry waiting for her at home plate. They play, and he tells her about practice—about Harwin and Meritt and Jon getting into arguments about who is going to pitch the first game of playoffs.

Playoffs—the word makes Arya’s heart come to a standstill.  Playoffs are coming.  They had made playoffs.  They hadn’t necessarily anticipated making playoffs, but they had, and the boys had too. And the next day when she stumbles, still exhausted, into the dining hall, she sees that there’s an article about it in the school newspaper, about how the baseball team is hosting Oldtown on Friday, and the softball team is driving east to Saltpans. She feels like she barely has time to process it before she’s off to Braavosi and realizing she probably has to reschedule her oral exam until after she’s back from Saltpans, and that she has a ten page papers to write about _The Bloody Hand_ that’s due the Friday after, when she might have a whole different game to worry about.

When she arrives at practice that afternoon, she, and Weasel, and Rosamund, drill as hard as they can with Syrio while she hears Ravella breaking the team in half so they can play small spars.  “Who’s pitching the game?” Arya asks Syrio, hanging back to walk with him as Weasel and Rosamund go ahead of her. 

“Rosamund,” he says. “You should rest.” She grimaces, but knows he’s right.  She had almost thrown her shoulder out against Winterfell, and she didn’t much like the idea of having to sit out semis if they made it because they played quarters. And, looking at Syrio’s benign smile before she snuck into the locker room, she could tell that they were saving her.  Gods, if she pitches semis…her stomach seemed to go cold and she does her best to think of something else.

Something else appears in the form of a text message on her phone when she finishes showering.

_Gendry Waters:  What are you up to after practice?  (Or does giving space mean radio silence for the moment?  We never actually sorted that out.)_

Arya’s heart jumps to her throat.  She hasn’t seen him in person since he hit her on the head with a baseball. But she thinks of her Braavosi paper, and her Econ problem set, and the fact that she’s getting on a bus to Saltpans tomorrow.

_Arya Stark: I’m in the library all night crying about how much work I have to get done before I leave for Saltpans.  (I’m not sure.  Let’s play it by ear?)_

“What’s with the frown?” asks Obella and Arya’s head jerks up as her phone buzzes in her hand. She looks down at the screen.

_Gendry Waters: Want a study buddy? (Too much?)_

“I…I have a lot of work to get done.  And…and someone wanted to do stuff tonight.”

“Someone?” Obella asks, raising an eyebrow.

“A special someone?” asks Cynthea.  “Look! She’s blushing.  Who’re you screwing?”

“I’m not screwing anyone.” _Except when we dream_ , she thinks, and her stomach twists. “It’s Gendry.” She begins typing again.

_Arya Stark: I can’t.  Just…not right now, ok?_

“Gendry?” Obella teases. “Since when has Gendry been able to make you blush like that?”

“Shut up.”

It’s not until she’s halfway to the library that she gets his response.

_Gendry Waters: All right.  Good luck.  Talk to you soon._

She hates texting suddenly, hates it because she can’t tell if she’s gone and upset him, or if he thinks she’s upset, but asking about it would mean that she wouldn’t get _anything_ done tonight, and she needs to not be distracted—not even by Gendry and gods is he distracting, even when she’s not remembering his face between her legs and, really? She had to think of that now? Really?  So she tucks her phone away, and knows that she’ll bring it up later.  Shouldn’t it be easy—taking space from someone?  And yet suddenly it feels hard—harder than before when she’d thought Gendry was two people and…fuck, she really needs to work on her Braavosi paper.

* * *

 

She doesn’t get home until nearly four in the morning, the draft of her paper is atrocious and she’s sure that her problem set is full of errors, but she can’t care because she’s too tired, and she’s glad—so glad—that she’s not playing on Friday night. And when she falls into her dream, she only has time to pitch five hits to Gendry before he disappears with his alarm and she’s alone in the field.

She only goes to Econ the next day because she needs to hand in her problem set, and wishes desperately that she could just get on the bus and sleep, and her insides twist it will be the first softball bus ride she’s ever taken without Gendry being there with the baseball team and maybe she wouldn’t have noticed before, but she notices now.  Isn’t she supposed to be relieved by that?  It’s space—away from him, time to think, and come to terms with the fact that he lied to her for years now, because that’s not space she can necessarily have when she sleeps, but instead she just feels sad, and alone when she boards. To make matters worse, she can’t even sit with Weasel or Lyanna because she’s got to edit her Braavosi paper and should probably try her hand at the Advanced Quantometrics problem set she hadn’t had time to start the night before. 

* * *

“You excited?” Gendry asks when she pitches to him.  He hits it and sends the ball out of the stadium and runs around her.

“I’m not playing tomorrow,” she says.  She sounds tired, even in her dreams, and it’s strange, because she’s asleep right now—her body is asleep but her mind is too overrun with quantometrical differentiations that she can’t even think straight.  When she looks down at the red lacing on the softball in her hand, it’s almost like the laces are graphs that she should be coordinating and she groans.

“What’s wrong?” Gendry asks. He sounds hesitant, and nervous, as though unsure whether he should even be asking.

“I just…I have a lot of work right now.”  He diverts as he passes third and comes out to the mound. 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah—like it’s sinking into my brain a bit even now.  And it’s fine, I’m not pitching tomorrow, but…no—no it’s not fine, because you’re playing no matter if I’m not.  And I’m sad I’m missing it.”

A crooked smile spreads across his face, and she blushes.  He shouldn’t smile at her that way, not while she’s still confused. He probably thinks she’s not confused right now, he probably thinks she’s sorted it out, and she hasn’t. “You’d miss it anyway,” he points out.  “It’s not like our games don’t always overlap.  And you missed the one game that you saw me play anyway because I—you know.” He reaches over at her with a closed fist, and she thinks he’s going to rap her head gently with his knuckles, but rests his fist there, gently, rubbing her head.

She smiles and closes her eyes for a moment. 

“Besides,” he says, “No offense, but if you’re not pitching overhand your pitches aren’t fast enough to be a challenge most of the time.  This is just for fun.”

Her eyes snap open and she narrows them.  A defensive look crosses his face.  “Look—it’s not that you’re a bad pitcher.  You’re really good.  But I’m used to hitting fastballs that are faster than yours and it’s because you pitch underhand.  You’ve been actually amazingly helpful for me and I’m the best hitter on the team for a lefty-pitcher, but…I should shut up.  I’m digging myself into a hole, aren’t I?”

“You still miss my pitches sometimes,” she says annoyed.

“Yes.  I do,” he agrees, and she’s sure he isn’t saying something because he’s worried about annoying her further.  “Like I said—you’re a good pitcher. And I said most of the time, all right?  It’s not a universal…I really need to shut up.”

“Go to home,” she says and he drops his hand from her head.  She hadn’t realized he’d left it there, but he had and he marches back to home, and when Arya looks at the ball in her hand, the laces look like laces.   “And don’t you fucking dare go easy on me.”

She strikes him out swinging, and raises her eyebrows at him, hands on her hips.

“I never said you were bad,” he says angrily.  “And I said most of the time.”

“No, but you think you’re a better player than me because you play baseball and I play softball,” she snaps.  “D’you think Kyle’s a better pitcher?  Or Jon? Or Harwin?”

“No, I don’t,” he says. “I just…” he trails away.

“You just what?” she asks, marching towards him.

“I just think I’m a good hitter, all right?  I have the most RBIs on the team, and there are recruiters after me to play professionally. I’m good, all right? And I think it’s because of you—for what that’s worth.  Because you and I play in our dreams and I get better because you’re really good. Look—it’s more a me thing than a you thing, all right?  I also said something stupid without thinking, and it’s not what I meant at all.”

“Well, next time you say something stupid without thinking, try not to be an ass, will you?” she says.  He exhales a quick, silent laugh, and the corner of his lips twitch, his eyes softening and they’re so blue and she’s not used to seeing him here, no matter how natural it is, and gods know it’s natural, but every time she notices her stomach twists a little bit because how could he not have told her?  How could neither of them told her, because that was the thing—it wasn’t just Gendry, it was her soulmate too.  They’d been separate in her head, they’d been different, and now they are the same.  And if one lie is a strike—and gods, she hates liars, hates them with every fiber of her being—he’d lied twice over and so he was at two strikes, and every one knows that it’s three strikes and you’re out.  She didn’t know if she could bear him striking out.

But at the same time it fits—it _fits_ that he’d be here, that Gendry’s in this dream, playing at batting practice with her, with his arms and his ass and that crooked smile.  It all fits too well, and when she sees him in his uniform, her stomach goes into knots because gods, she knew that some girls like a man in uniform, but she’d never thought she’d have a thing for a guy in a baseball uniform. Why was it that part of her was so hurt, and upset, while another part of her just wanted to jump his bones—unbutton his jersey and run her hands along his chest? That was remarkably unhelpful of her, though she supposes she shouldn’t be surprised at this point. It’s not like her head has been remarkably helpful with regards to being attracted to him up until this point, why should it be helpful now?

“I’ll try that.” His voice is low and a little bit gravelly and Arya gulps.

“Good.”

He nods, and—fuck it, if she’s going to be confused, she might as well be _really_ confused, right? She reaches up and tugs at his collar, pulling him down and kisses him and she forgets that this is a dream, because everything about it is real, the warmth of his lips against hers, the pine scent that he never seems to be without—even the taste of his breath as he nudges her lips open with his tongue and it’s in her mouth, caressing her tongue and making her legs feel like jelly.

She pulls her arms around his neck, standing on the tips of her toes, her chest against his and he drops the bat he’d been holding and grabs her hips, lifting her so that she has to wrap her legs around his waist and now, she’s not pulling his head down to meet her, she’s hunched over him, all too aware of his stomach between her legs as she holds his face and he walks backward so that he’s leaning against the dugout, squeezing her ass and breathing heavily through his nose.

“I’m still confused,” she whispers to him between kisses.

“I can tell,” he says dryly.

“I am.”

“Yep.”

“Shut up. I mean it.”

“I know you do.” He breaks the kiss and looks at her seriously.  “It’s the same as it was before, really.”

“What do you mean?” she asks quickly, and slowly, he lets her down and sighs.

“Look—it’s…” he reaches up and takes off his baseball cap, running his hands through his hair, then putting it back on in a motion so fast, so natural, that Arya almost smiles. “It’s the emotional and the physical, right?  Like—the physical lined up.  Always.” She blushes, thinking of their sex dreams.  “It’s the emotional that didn’t.  So…the physical makes sense.  That’s always been easy.  It still is. It’s the other bit that’s…yeah.”

Arya chews on her lip and looks down at her hands.  He reaches over and cups her chin, and there’s a gentleness in his eyes that she’s not expecting.  “For what it’s worth, I’ve gotten really good at compartmentalizing that,” he whispers. “I…I know you handle them separately.  It’s…yeah…”

“That almost makes me feel worse,” she mumbles, and he hugs her tightly. 

“Don’t. Focus on the other stuff. This part isn’t broken.”

“Isn’t it? If the emotional and the physical don’t line up?”

He frowns slightly, then looks away, over her shoulder, thinking.  “I suppose.  Yeah. I suppose.  but…” he looks back down at her.  “You just kissed me.  Because you wanted to.  Because you felt like it, because you figured it’d be fine, right?”

“Yes?”

“So, it’s a kiss. It doesn’t have to necessarily be a full blown ‘I’m in love with you’ kiss or anything.”  Her stomach ties itself into sixty-seven different knots and her breath catches in her throat.  “Sometimes people screw around for fun.  If that’s what this is right now, it’s what it is. If you can’t do that right now, if you need to try and put them together, that’s fine.  But if you can compartmentalize them—and you shouldn’t feel bad doing that—then I can too.”

He watches her closely, and she has that feeling again like he’s holding his breath, waiting for her to turn away from him.  _Does he really think he’s so worthless that I’d do that so easily_ , she wonders.  She stands on the tips of her toes and kisses him again, and, when his lips open against hers and his tongue sneaks between them, she almost feels calm.

* * *

They win in extra innings at Saltpans and Arya’s heart is in her throat the entire time because they end up having to stick Weasel in as relief and Weasel’s round face is so determined as she strikes out hitter after hitter and it’s as much Weasel’s victory as anyone else’s.  The girl is purely ecstatic and she and Arya spend most of the bus ride back running through a play-by-play of her pitches, of how each throw felt, of her frame of mind as she threw and Arya’s never felt prouder because Weasel’s face is positively alight.   

They arrive back at the University well past midnight, and Gendry texts her telling her to come by Luke and Jack’s where they’re hosting a party that half the school seems to be at, but her feet take her back to her dorm, where Beth is already asleep and her bed is soft, and warm, and waiting for her.

* * *

The next day she spends tearing her hair out over Advanced Quantometrics, when her phone buzzes.

_Gendry Waters: I’m meeting with the Trouts manager today._

She frowns, and stares at the words on the screen for a moment before replying.

_Arya Stark: You’ll be fine.  Stay calm.  They’ll want you.  I know it._

_Gendry Waters: Yeah.  I mean.  That’s what I keep telling myself.  But…haha yeah._

_Arya Stark: Stop assuming that people won’t want you. It’s not healthy._

_Gendry Waters: I know.  Still—I mean, it’s very possible they won’t, right? Like they might not need a second baseman._

_Arya Stark:  Like you couldn’t play short stop.  Or third.  Or first. Or fuck, you could totally play outfield._

_Gendry Waters: Yeah.  I just wish this was all over and I knew, you know?_

_Arya Stark: I can imagine.  It’ll be over soon enough though, and that’s what matters._

_Gendry Waters: Right._

_Gendry Waters: Right._

_Gendry Waters: Ok.  I’m heading over.  Wish me luck._

_Arya Stark: You don’t need it, but good luck!_

She puts her phone back down.  She’s not nervous for him.  She does genuinely believe he’ll be recruited.  She can’t fathom a team not wanting someone with Gendry’s stats.  _My stats are just as good_ , she thinks forlornly.  _Mine are just as good, but I’m not going to be recruited_. 

She could be. She really could be. She would make a great pitcher anywhere in the league—and everyone knows you need to get pitchers young before they blow their arms.  But…she chews her lip.  It’s not a safe career path.  It’s not where the money is.  If she did it, she’d be done in a few years and wouldn’t be set for life.  Even with a starting contract, Gendry would make twice what she would just because he was a guy playing baseball and she’s a girl playing softball. 

The unfairness of it all hits her in the gut and she turns back to her homework.  She could be happy for Gendry, and supportive too. And besides, depending on how it went…they were soulmates after all…if he got a good—no. No no.  She wasn’t supposed to be jumping ahead like that and thinking about how they would finance their life, that if he could live his dreams, he’d make enough for her to live hers as well.

She needs to prepare for her fucking finals, and she puts her AQ homework away and tugs out her Braavosi flashcards because she has her oral exam the next day, and needs to spend the evening making sure she understands the greater themes of _The Bloody Hand_ and falls asleep over her notes, waking up only when her phone is buzzing next to her with a message from Lyanna asking if she’s going to breakfast before class.

Stress washes over Arya, washes over her like nothing she’s felt all semester.  They have afternoon practice, and Syrio is putting Weasel through her paces, because after her performance at Saltpans, they’ve decided to start her against Brightwater Keep, and only by working her hard can they keep the look of panic off of her face.  After practice, she goes straight to the library, where she does problem after problem for Econ, reviews different theories and theorems for AQ, and wonders what on earth made her like quantitative reasoning to begin with. Why couldn’t she have liked literature and poetry like Sansa?

Arya hadn’t heard from Sansa since just after her trip to Winterfell, but in the brief moments she sees Ned in the dining halls, he looks happier than she’s seen him in months, and she hopes that it carries over to her sister. 

She edits another draft of her Braavosi paper, goes back and corrects her midterm for Econ, which everyone had bombed, and spends hours talking through problems with Shireen until when she drops into her bed—later and later every night, even though she _should_ be going to bed early because they have a game on Saturday, and even if she’s not pitching it, she should still be rested because what if Weasel has a meltdown and they end up needing her?  Even her dreams aren’t calm. The baseball diamond seems to roil, and becomes less a diamond and more a graph that seems unsure as to whether or not it’s an AQ field or a series of bell curves for Econ. 

And, to make matters worse, she knows that Gendry is stressed as well, and that he runs around the bell curves as much for her own entertainment as for his own need to let off some of his nervousness, because no matter what Arya tells him, it’s scary for him. It’s always so scary for him, she realizes—being afraid that someone new will turn him away. And no matter how many times she tells him that it will all be well, it won’t matter.  The dreams aren’t relaxing—and they’re hardly productive for her figuring everything out, and the only way they settle is if he comes over and kisses her and takes her breath away, pulling her close, his hands huge and warm as they cup her face, holding her there until nothing in the world is solid anymore and she wakes up with a jolt, wishing that finals were over and that she could find time to _actually_ kiss Gendry.

* * *

It’s Beth—mild, gentle, kind, quiet Beth—who sends Arya to bed the night before the game against The Crag. She takes Arya’s computer away and puts it under her own pillow so that Arya can’t touch it until after the game, and even threatens to take her phone away if she tries working reviewing her econ on it.

Arya lies back with her heart thudding, wondering how long it’ll take her to fall asleep, given how late she’s been going to bed these days and, after half an hour of tossing and turning, she digs out a sleeping pill and downs it.  It seems to have no effect, and she wonders if she’s immune as she stares at the yellowish light that the streetlamps outside cast up onto the ceiling of the room. 

She tries not to panic. She remembers something from the human emotion class she took a few semesters before about how panic and the will to make yourself sleep keeps you awake, and she tries to think of something else, anything else, something calming and stupid like how soft Nymeria’s stomach is or how she wonders what Bran is doing, or if Jon is all right, but even thinking of home and family don’t calm her and she feels her heart thumping in her chest as if she’s been sprinting full out.

That’s when Gendry climbs onto the bed next to her and nuzzles into her neck.

“What are you doing here? Beth’s asleep,” Arya hisses.

“So are you,” he replies and he kisses her slowly, deeply, his hands coming to rest at the top of her ribcage as she twists on her side to make room for him on the bed. She sits up for a moment, and sees that Beth’s bed has conveniently vanished and that the room isn’t so much her dorm room as one of the hotel rooms she’d stayed in for one game or another, and the bed isn’t her narrow extra-long twin bed, but a wide bed—wider than the room, than the sea, and it’s just her and Gendry in it.  She takes a shaky breath, and her mind is still moving a mile a minute but now it’s full of different things—different questions, different fears and nervousness, because Genry’s in her dreams and they aren’t at their field, they’re in her bed, together, and his lips are right _there_.

He’s watching her now, watching her and waiting, his face completely blank, and he says he can compartmentalize it while she figures it out.  He says he can…She drags his lips to hers and he moans and his tongue entwines itself with hers before he moves, before he drops his head to her neck, to her collar bone, down, down, kissing between her breasts, and she runs her fingers through his hair as he sucks on the skin above her sternum.

“Don’t stop,” she whispers to him, and, perversely, he does.  He pulls away from her, and looks at her, and she can’t tell if it’s because the room is dark or because it’s a dream but his eyes are darker than usual.

“Arya,” he whispers. “Do you…?” he doesn’t finish the question, and she feels suddenly very warm and her heart is beating as fast as a hummingbird’s.  It was different now, somehow.  Now that they aren’t…or rather…now that she knows that he’s…that they’re…but it’s also not different.  Not different because she feels hot and breathless looking down at him and all she can think about his how she wants his lips on her, wherever he wants to put them and she tugs her t-shirt off. 

She smiles as his lips wrap around her nipples, as his hands drop from her shoulder blades to her hips and one of them snakes between her legs and hooks through the bottom of her underpants and draws them down her legs, leaving her completely naked. She lets him tilt her back so that she’s lying flat on her back on the bed, one hand between her legs while he sucks on her nipple and she doesn’t have to think about anything at all, can’t think about anything but him because how could she?  How could she think of anything else while he’s touching her?

She reaches her hands up and arches her back so that her breasts rise higher and he switches to the other, his fingers lazily skirting the top of her slit, and moans because he’s not there yet—not touching her where she wants him to but he’s going to soon, she can feel it.  His fingers trace her outer labia and she makes a mewling sound she hopes she would never make in real life, and she feels him grinning into her tit and he begins to kiss his way up to the top of her breast and to her neck, to her lips, and when his mouth’s against hers she wraps her arms around his neck, wraps her legs around his hips and clings to him, relishing that he’s there in her arms, that he’s there with her, even if it’s a dream because with them dreams are reality too.

She uses her feet to nudge his sweatpants down over his butt and off his legs and he moans as she rubs her cunt along his shaft and as she reaches down between them and takes his cock in hand, pumping it once or twice before she settles it at her entrance and he shoves inside her and she gasps his name.

He stills for a moment and grins down at her.

“What is it?” she whispers, breathless.

But he doesn’t reply, he just kisses her and pulls his hips away from hers and pushes back in.

“Gendry,” she says, halfway between a moan and an exasperated sigh.

“I like hearing you say my name,” he whispers.  “I like that you know it’s me, that we’re here together, and that this—” he presses into her again and his eyelids flutter slightly, “This is us…this is right. This is how it should be.” 

He’s right, but something still catches at her heart, some lingering fear, some shadow of doubt that it won’t be, somehow.  That her stupid heart and her stupid head won’t line up and if she sees him in person she’ll be upset and sad and hurt again and this feeling of him inside her will fade away. Or that he’ll do something and strike out and everything will break irreparably.

But that’s a thought for later, not a thought for now.  Now, she is compartmentalizing.  She props herself up on her elbows and kisses him, his neck, his lips, his cheek, his chin—whatever she can reach as he thrusts and thrusts and she feels her breath growing shorter and her heart pumping faster.  She slips her fingers down between them to rest on her clit and she circles lightly, circles in time with his movements and soon, too soon, far sooner than she expected, much sooner than she wanted she’s choking out his name again as she comes harder than she ever had before in their dreams, falling back against the pillows and letting her cunt convulse around him as he continues rock in and out of her, until he shudders, climaxes, and collapses on top of her.

* * *

She feels like she’s glowing, feels like she’s radiating warmth because her dreams had been so hot when she goes into the locker rooms the next day. And when she sits down next to Weasel, who is already fully dressed and looking a little sick, the warmth doesn’t fade.

“You ready?” she asks. Weasel doesn’t move, but she does swallow very obviously. “You can do this,” Arya says, reaching over and rubbing between the other girl’s shoulder blades. “You’ve done it a hundred times before.”

“And I’ve lost,” Weasel says. “I lose, Arya. When we can’t lose. I lost at White Harbor, I lost at—”

“You won for us at Saltpans,” Arya says fiercely. “You’re going to win today. I know it. Here—think of it this way…every ounce of nerves you’re feeling right now,” Weasel lets out an unintentional whimper, and Arya rubs her back again, “Every single one, ball them up really tight, put them in the softball and throw them away as hard as you can.” Weasel manages an expression of derision, and Arya laughs. “Alternatively, if you think you’re nervous now, channel all that into making me as nervous as possible on Wednesday.”

“What’s Wednesday?” Weasel asks dumbly.

“I have two finals and, if we win, I’ll be pitching finals too.” Arya thinks about it for a moment, and lets out a panicked laugh. “Yeah—make me as nervous as possible, please. I could do with more stress.”

“You don’t seem stressed now,” Weasel says, her eyebrows knitted together in concern. “You seem happy right now.”

Arya thinks back to Gendry lying on top of her, laughing as he kissed his way up and down her face while she held his ass in place so that he couldn’t pull his cock out of her just yet, and she suppresses a smile. “I had a good dream last night.”

“Did you see your soulmate’s face?” Weasel asks excitedly.

Arya blinks in surprise before realizing she hadn’t told anyone on the team yet. “I’ve known who he was for a while now,” she says slowly. “I think…I think him knocking a foul ball into my head helped a fair amount.” It was easier to use that as an excuse than the truth.

Weasel claps her hands delightedly and calls out, “Guys she knows!”

“Finally,” calls Lyanna. “We were wondering what the poor boy would try next.”

“Wait—you all knew?” Arya asks, aghast.

“Yeah—I mean, it’s obvious, isn’t it. The way you two spend time together,” Elia says gently. “It’s not very ‘friend’ like, nor is it particularly ‘we’re having sex in secret’ like. It’s something else entirely. Pretty obvious if you know what to look for.  You know—him trailing after you at parties, or trying not to dance together at clubs. That sort of stuff.” She claps Arya on the shoulder, and Arya looks up at her grumpily.

“Oh, don’t look that way,” says Shireen cheerfully. “We were pulling for you. And apparently the baseball team got it out of him when he was drunk freshman year. Not your name—just enough about you to put pieces together when you got to campus.”

“He never told me that,” Arya mutters, not sure how annoyed she is, or how annoyed she should be.

“I don’t know if he remembers it,” says Joy mildly. She’s pulling her curls up into a tight pony tail and weaving it through the hole at the back of her cap. “He was really quite shitfaced. He hasn’t drunk that much since, I don’t think, though that might be for other reasons.”

“He doesn’t drink,” Arya says. “Only beer because it doesn’t get him drunk.”

“I wish I didn’t get drunk off beer,” sighs Cynthea and the team laughs.

She’s trying not to feel upset—trying not to feel angry, because gods—everyone had known but her?  Every single person? Bran and Jon had probably guessed it.  Shit, Ned had probably told Sansa.  Everyone in her life had known—even her _mother_ had intuited it just from one conversation and…this was why things were still messed up. This—right here. This because everyone had known but she hadn’t and Gendry hadn’t told her, he’d just let her go around and…she flushes and realizes she’s not really listening to what Myrcella is saying.

“All right,” Ravella calls. “Let’s get this show on the road.”  And Arya pushes it all away.  Later.  She’ll think about this later.  When she has time.  After finals, or something.

Arya’s heart is in her throat as she watches Weasel take the mound. Weasel looks so small, suddenly, so young, and her nervousness is palpable. The first pitch is a hit, and one of Brightwater’s runners gets to first, and Arya groans, because she knows that would shake Weasel’s confidence. “You can do this,” she mutters. “You can, you’ve done this before, you can do it again.”

Weasel seems to have thought the same thing, because she strikes out the next three hitters with what seems like relative ease and when she comes back to the dugout, she almost smiles as the team pats her on the back and she comes to sit between Arya and Syrio.

Arya hands her a water bottle and she downs half of it and doesn’t say anything. Arya doesn’t either. She doesn’t want to break her concentration.

Apart from that first hit, Weasel pitches five perfect innings, and they score twice before they send in Rosamund to replace her, and when she sinks onto the bench she’s grinning madly and says to Arya, “It’s not my fault if we lose.”

“You are fantastic,” Arya grins, and she throws her arm over Weasel’s shoulder. “If we lose, you and I get to beat everyone up for ruining our chances, all right?”

“Right.”

It’s not something they have to worry about at all. They win four to one and Arya spends at least half an hour dancing around the field with everyone else before they go back into the locker rooms and proceed to relive the highlights of the game loudly until Ravella blows her whistle and everyone quiets down.

“Great game everyone,” says Ravella as they all settle down on their benches, some of them only half dressed and Myrcella wrapped only in a towel. “That was,” and she raises a hand, a proud smile crossing her face, “amazing. And if we lose finals, I’ll still be remarkably proud of you.”

“We’re not losing finals,” says Joy and they stamp their feet in agreement.

“Arya—you’re pitching,” Ravella says and Arya nods. No one looks surprised—it’s been obvious that’s been the goal the whole time. “Rosamund how’s your arm in case we need relief?” Rosamund shrugs and nods. “Good. No practice tomorrow, but Monday and Tuesday we’re going for three hours a night. I know some of you have finals—if you are worried about them, come talk to me.”

Four girls are already standing and going to talk to Ravella, so Arya bites back her panic and pulls out her phone to begin to email her family and tell them the news. When she’s fired it off, she looks up and sees Syrio standing over her.

“You are quiet as a cat, you are,” she mutters, tucking her phone away.

“Lots of practice,” he responds, shrugging. “How’re you feeling?”

She considers. “Nervous—more about finals than this.”

Syrio nods. “You and I will work—but I don’t think we’ll want the full three hours Monday and Tuesday. How does an hour and a half sound?”

Arya sighs in relief. “I have two finals on Wednesday as well, so that sounds perfect.”

“An hour a night,” Syrio says. “And be sure to rest.”

Arya nods, and her phone buzzes in her pocket.

_Gendry Waters: We lost. I’m about to talk to a scout. How’d yours go?_

The news seems to have hit most of them at the same time, because she hears Myrcella calling out, “The boys lost,” and a wave of groans fills the room.

_Arya Stark: We won. I’m pitching finals on Wednesday. And I have two finals on Wednesday. Cue panicked laughter._

When she gets out of the shower, she has three text messages from Gendry.

_Gendry Waters: You’ll be great. In all of them. I’m not even worried about you._

_Gendry Waters: And if you’re worried about finals, we’ll play a lot this week.  It’ll probably calm me down some as well._


	9. Chapter 9

For the next three nights, she dreams with Gendry, dreams them into their field and pitches with a fury unlike anything.

“Anything on your mind?” Gendry teases as she strikes him out again.

“Nope,” she calls back. “Not letting it.  Only softball.” She refuses to let the diamond turn into quantometrical plots again, and she refuses to wrap her head in circles thinking about the lie.  Not now—not until after she’s finished finals.

“That’s good,” he replies.

“Have you heard back from the scouts yet?” she asks, and he shakes his head.

“I’ll probably hear back on Wednesday. I imagine while you’re in one of your finals, actually.”

“Looks like we both have something to look forward to that day,” she says dryly and sends the ball spinning past him again.

“Arya?” His voice sounds strangled, almost upset.

“Yeah?”

“Never mind,” he says quickly.

“Nope. I won’t,” she replies lightly, “What’s up?”

He doesn’t speak for a moment, and she can tell he’s warring with himself, trying to determine if it’s worth saying.  She knows it too well—is it a big deal?  Does it go without saying?  Should it be said on principle?

She waits calmly, watching him closely, and finally, he speaks.  “What if I don’t get selected? What if I don’t…I don’t make the big leagues, and I’m stuck doing nothing?”

Arya cocks her head at him.

“You’re the best hitter on the team, and you helped bring your team to semi-finals for the first time in years.”

“Yeah, but—”

“If you don’t get selected it’s because they’re stupid, not because you’re bad. Anyone looking at you can tell you should be playing in the majors.”

He looks down at the plate and Arya crosses the stretch of grass between them and wraps her arms around his waist, standing on her tip toes so she can rest her chin easily on his shoulders. She breathes him in, feeling his heart pounding against her ribcage as he stands there, almost trembling.

* * *

Econ is a nightmare, but one that she comes out of feeling like she might have vanquished a mortal enemy. Advanced Quantometrics she’s pretty sure chewed her up and spat her back out, but looking around the exam room after they take her blue book away from her, she’s pretty sure that everyone feels the same, so she might have scraped a good grade, depending on how they curve the class. She sits numbly by herself during dinner, scrolling through messages on her phone.

_Jon Snow: You are going to kick ass tonight. I’m so excited for you._

_Bran Stark: Remember how we didn’t know how I would use my god powers to help you? Well…I’m using them tonight to make sure you win, so when you win it’s really because of me, all right?_

_Sansa Stark: I’m so excited! I don’t think I’ve seen you play before!_

_Dad: Good luck—we’re all cheering for you. I’ve even got Mom watching._

_Mom: Ignore your father. He’s stirring up trouble. I would be watching anyway._

_Mom: We’re so proud of you and I can’t wait!_

_Rickon Stark: If the other team wins, I will beat them up._

_Robb Stark: Jon says you’re pitching tonight. You’re going to do great. Breathe deep and relax. You can do it._

She hardly has a moment to process the outpouring of love from her family before her phone rings in her hand and it’s Gendry.

“Hey,” she says, smiling exhaustedly into the phone.

“Two down, one to go.” He sounds like he’s grinning. “How do you feel?”

“A bit numb. And like my mind can’t really function anymore.”

“Function—is that a math joke?”

“No. Stop. I hate you.”

He snorts. “That’s good though—it means you can’t overthink the game. Let your body take over. It knows what to do.”

She nods, then remembers he can’t see her and says, “I don’t think I’ll have any trouble with that.”

He laughs. “I should go, I just wanted to wish you luck.”

“You’ll be there, right?” she asks.

“Obviously.”

“Good,” she smiles. “Gendry?”

“Yeah?”

“The scouts—did you…”

“Riverrun and Oldtown both made offers.”

“Oldtown,” she breathes excitedly. They’re routinely at the top of the league. “Gendry that’s amazing!”

“Yeah.” He sounds pleased with himself. “It hasn’t sunk in yet. I have a week to get back to them, so…yeah.”

“I’m so happy for you.” She’s grinning like a madwoman, one hand resting in front of her mouth.

“Thanks,” he says quietly, sincerely, and her stomach flutters. “Got to run. Told Jack I’d help him load stuff for the after party.”

“After party? We haven’t won yet.”

“Yeah—but come on. Regardless, there’ll be a party. What do you take us for?” Gendry demands.

“A bunch of louts, really.”

“Bye Arya. See you soon.”

* * *

Her brain is fully off, a wrung out sponge, by the time she takes the mound, and Gendry’s right—it’s the perfect state of being. She can’t hear the chants from the crowd, can’t hear even the thumping of her own heart. Everything is fuzzy and dreamlike, and because it’s dreamlike, every hitter is Gendry—only less good because they don’t know how to hit against a lefty and she strikes out hitter after hitter, quickly and easily. She refuses to sit between innings, scared that if she does, she won’t be able to get back up. Syrio doesn’t even have the heart to tell her not to, and Weasel hands her bottles of water which she downs as if they are energy drinks.

And, because her brain is fully off, and her body is fully on, she can’t even try to control the thoughts of Gendry that sink into her head as she pitches against hitter after hitter.

Gendry grouchy on the train next to her because the lie had gotten more complicated.

Her soulmate, and the way he’d kept a baseball bat in his bedroom because of his mother’s shitty boyfriends.

Gendry at the Wolves game, resolutely wearing his Dragons t-shirt.

Her soulmate changing away from a team he loved because he hated his father so much.

Gendry, giving her a crooked smile as he teased her while playing catch on the quad.

Her soulmate and the way he shimmied his hips and smelled like pine, like home.

Each pitch she throws alternates between the two concepts: Gendry—her friend—Gendry—her soulmate.  Both had lied to her and both…both love her.  He loves her. She knows he does. He’d all but said it, and probably would have if she hadn’t been so upset. She might have been an idiot not noticing that he was her soulmate in the first place, but now—she knows it now.

Strike after strike she throws.  Three strikes and you’re out.  How many strikes was the lie?  Could it actually be only one, one strike because it had all been one lie?  Or could it be, as she feared, two—twice as terrible because he’d done it from two sides? 

Or was it a strike at all—was it a ball? 

She almost freezes when she thinks of it because of _course,_ she’s thinking about it all wrong!  She’s not the pitcher in this scenario—for once in her life, she’s the batter, and Gendry isn’t, and if he’s the pitcher, it’s not a strike, it’s a ball, penalizing the one who throws it, not the batter who misses.

She hadn’t thrown the pitch.  He had. And he’d fucked up. But two balls doesn’t walk the runner.  You’ve got two left, not one, not zero.  There was so much time left at the at-bat to see how it would go.  So Gendry had thrown two balls and—she groans. Groans because now his cock’s on her mind, and she is suppressing a grin because of all the baseball-sex metaphors that existed, she didn’t think she’d ever quite heard that one before.

But it’s clear, now.  Clearer than it had been before.  And so what if he had two balls—ugh—against him.  All he had to do was strike her out, or let her get on base, and now, for the more traditional baseball metaphor—Arya realized exactly where a home run would take her.

Three innings turn into seven somehow, and when they take her out, everything turns back on, like someone turning the volume up on a stereo.  They’re up five to zero, and the cheers of “Spooky spooky ow!” fill the stadium and as she sags against Weasel, she knows she won’t have to pay attention, won’t have to sit on the edge of her seat to make sure they don’t fuck it up. Because they’re on fire—truly on fire—and when Shireen drives in a two run home run, the stadium seems to explode and she almost feels bad for Highgarden—almost.

They win seven to zero and the whole school seems to rush the field, and Arya finds herself hoisted onto shoulders and carried around like some sort of conquering hero as chants of “Our house, our house, our house!” thunder so loudly she thinks the earth might be shaking.

When she emerges from the locker room, her voice hoarse from shouting and her hair a wet and unbrushed mess, she finds her entire family standing there, grinning and she stops short.

“You’re here,” she says, stunned as Dad gives her a huge hug.

“Of course we came,” says Bran. “Come on—I might be god material, but I’m not omniscient. I need to actually be somewhere to know how to use my powers.”

Jon’s the next one hugging her, squeezing her so tightly she thinks her ribs are cracking as he lifts her off the ground. “You’re a champ.”

“Literally,” Robb says, reaching over and clapping her on the shoulder. “Literally, you’re a champion. How does that feel?”

“Remarkably like it did before I was a champion,” Arya says dryly.

“Are you going to put her down so the rest of us can have a go?” asks Rickon.

“Nope,” says Jon happily.

“Well, you were amazing,” Sansa positively squeals. “I didn’t have to know a bunch about softball to know you were amazing. And Ned was going to explain everything to me if I needed it.”

Dad looks around confused then rolls his eyes. “Can we call him Edric? I was here first.”

Everyone laughs and Ned shrugs apologetically. “Do you think it’s revelatory at all that Sandor looks like dad and Ned’s named…you know…” Jon hisses in Arya’s ear and she lets out a hoot of mirth. Jon finally puts her down, grinning broadly.

“What’s so funny?” asks Rickon.

“It doesn’t bear repeating, I promise,” Arya grins. She hugs her mother next. “Thanks for coming, Mom.”

Mom rolls her eyes. “You know—I do actually like this sport. Gods know I’ve gone to enough games to appreciate it. Of course I would come see you play.” Her mother kisses her cheek. “Your father likes to cause trouble.”

“I do not,” says Dad brightly. “I never cause trouble. I am a paragon of truth and honor. We do not cause trouble, us paragons of truth and honor.” Her mother just laughs and kisses Dad’s cheek.

They make plans for the next day—brunch at a fancy restaurant in town, then a tour of the castle since Rickon and Jon have never seen it.  When they part ways, Sansa and Ned walk with her for about fifty feet before Ned asks.  “You coming tonight, then?”

“Coming?” she asks and it’s a testament to how tired she is—or perhaps to her in-game thoughts—that she starts to blush. 

“To Jack’s and Luke’s,” Sansa says quickly.  “They’re hosting the after party.”

“I…” She doesn’t know.  She’d like to—that’s true enough.  But at the same time, she’d like to see Gendry.  She looks around as if half-expecting to find him there.  “I’ll see.  I’m a bit brain-dead at the moment, to be honest, and can’t really…” She sees him—he’s about twenty feet away, his hands jammed into the pockets of his Harrenhal hoodie, chatting happily with Lyanna and Elia.

She hears Ned mutter something to Sansa, who laughs quietly and very pointedly says, “See you at some point, then,” and the two of them go off together into the night while Arya waits for Gendry.

“Hello,” she says and her voice sounds stupidly breathy. 

“Good game,” Gendry grins down at her and tentatively extends his arms for a hug. She steps into them gladly. “I’m so proud of you,” he breathes into her hair.

“Thanks,” she says, smiling into his chest and letting the scent of pine wash over her.

When she pulls away, she notices that Elia and Lyanna have kept on going, and she almost laughs, because it’s like everyone’s giving them space, like everyone’s saying—“you two, go off and do things together.  The world will continue without you for a few hours.”

“Where are you headed?” she asks him.

“I dunno,” he says, dragging both words out, not breaking eye contact with her, and then, in a complete opposite manner, more staccato, more breathless, he asks, “What about you?”

“I was going to drop my stuff off…but after that I’m not sure.”

“Luke and Jack have a party,” Gendry suggests, watching her carefully.  “I…I wasn’t planning on going, unless you wanted. I was thinking something else. Thinking we could talk. Unless…” he bites back a frown, “Unless you want more space.”

“Yeah. I’d like to.  Though,” she feels a slow smile stretch across her face, “I…I think I’m sorted.”

His face twitches into a smile and his eyes seem to glow hopefully.  “Want me to carry your bag?”

“I got it.”

“I don’t mind.” He’s standing close again. “Your shoulder—”

“I have two of them,” she points out, and he reaches out and for a moment she thinks he’s going to seize the bag but he doesn’t—he cups her chin and bends down and before catching himself and stopping, his eyes darting between hers, silently asking the question.  Arya rolls her eyes and raises herself on tip-toes and kisses him, tugging the front of his sweatshirt towards her and everything stops.  There’s no gentle breeze, no sound of happy students making their way back to campus around them, not even Arya’s heart pounding in her chest. There’s just his lips, and hers, and it’s not a dream—it’s not and she can tell because her dreams seem to pale in comparison to this, the exact curve of his smile against hers, the heat of his breath coming out of his nostrils, the way his fingertips tremble against her skin. 

When he pulls away, eyes are serious, and Arya bites her lip.

“I really don’t want to go to Luke’s and Jack’s party,” he says, and she smiles.

“I thought we established that that’s squarely off the agenda for the night.”

“I was just reiterating,” he says.  She reaches over and takes his hand and his palms are callused from holding bats, the way they are in her dreams, and she weaves her fingers through his and, hand in hand, they walk back towards campus.

* * *

They don’t go to her dorm room, because it doesn’t matter if she drops off her bag in the end. They go straight to Gendry’s room, a large single she’s been in twice—once to nag him to finish his homework so they could play catch and once when he wanted to pick up a textbook to do some of his Biochem homework while watching the Dragons game. She deposits the bag just inside the door and it hits the floor with a soft thud as Gendry’s lips crash against hers again, and she throws her arms around his neck, pulling herself up so that her chest is right against his. His fingers push her baseball cap off and pushes it off her pony tail, which he also undoes before weaving his hands through her still damp-from-the-shower hair. She nips at his lips and he sighs into her mouth, hands coming down to cup her ass as he walks them both back to his bed.

He has the bed raised up slightly so that he could fit a chest of drawers underneath it, and he presses her hips against the metal of the bed frame, using it to keep her balanced while his hands dance over her back, her neck, her arms, her chest and her tongue slips into his mouth. She feels delirious with the heat of him everywhere. She’d never noticed, but her dreams—however hot they were, were never warm, and she never felt his pulse beneath her fingers as she holds his face and runs her thumbs along the stubble of his cheeks. She’s never felt the stubble either—he’s always perfectly clean shaven in her dreams, but there is a roughness to his face and when one of their heads turns or twists to find a new angle, he scrapes her skin lightly and she loves every second of it—every reminder that they’re here, that they’re together, that this—this is them. This right here is how they were always supposed to be, from the day they were born until the day they die.

She feels his erection pressing into her, just along the crevice between her stomach and her leg, and she bucks her hips lightly into it and he groans into her again. She grins and does it again. “That’s going to get you into trouble,” he says through kisses, and she smiles into his lip and drops her hands from his face to rest on his chest between them.

“I like trouble,” she breathes and tweaks his nipples. He yelps and pulls away, his eyes wide and dark, his lips and cheeks red and she leans forward and kisses the underside of the jaw, scraping her nose and lips against the stubble under his chin, her fingers still pinching at his chest. He tilts his head back and lets her, his hands coming to her sides and for the first time, they seem to be there more to steady himself and less to steady her. Arya kisses her way down his neck to the dip between his collarbones, letting the dark hair on his chest that’s poking through the neck of his t-shirt brush against her lips before she kisses her way to the side of her neck and sucks. Her hands drop to his ass and she remembers before she knew who he was, when she’d watched him running in her dreams and noticed just how muscular his ass was, and she laughs to herself because gods she wants to see him naked, see the way his skin is smooth and dimples over muscles that hours and hours of baseball, of hitting and running have given him.

Gendry’s hands leave her sides and come up between them, nudging them apart as he cups her breasts, finding her stiffening nipples through her t-shirt and sports bra and circling around them, rubbing his thumbs across them in a way that makes her smile into his neck.

“That feel good?” he asks her.

“Mmmhmm.”

“Good.”

“You know what would feel better?” she asks and she kisses her way to the other side of his neck, still smiling.

“What?”

She pulls away and tugs her t-shirt over her head, then reaches down and pulls off the sports bra. It almost gets stuck around her head, and as she fiddles with it, she feels something warm, and wet on her nipples and it goes straight to her groin because she knows he’s kissing her—she can tell because there’s his stubble again, scratching at her breasts this time. When she throws her bra to the ground, she weaves her fingers through his hair, gasping slightly as he rubs his teeth over the stiffened flesh because the smoothness of them, the sturdiness of them…

“Gods that feels amazing.” Her voice is trembling, air going shallow into her lungs.

“Looks like you were right then,” he murmurs and he kisses his way to her other breast and she groans as he takes the other nipple into his mouth and sucks. She lets her hands fall from his head, sends her left down between them to try and reach for his cock, but he’s squatted down slightly the way he would be if he were guarding base and so she can’t quite reach it, and has to content herself with gripping the mattress behind her, her head rolling back as she focuses on breathing, focuses on him.

Soon enough, his lips are back on hers, and she’s shoving his t-shirt up, and breaks the kiss only long enough pull it off him and throw it to the ground with her own t-shirt and her bra. That’s when Gendry picks her up and places her on the bed, clambering up after her, and they lie down together on their sides since the mattress is too small for both of them. “That bed in the dream the other night was handy,” Gendry grins.

“Yeah—I always thought these were big beds but then you came along,” she sighs. He chuckles, and she runs her hands along his chest, tracing patterns through his hair as she moves them down. She feels his stomach tighten under her touch and she breaks away from him just to see and fucking hell he’s got like an eight pack or something. She lays her palms flat along them and she hears him laugh again.

“Never noticed before?” he teases.

“I did—but it’s different when it’s not a dream,” she replies. His smile fades slightly and he reaches over and cups her cheek, then his hand drifts down to cup her breast.

“I know,” he breathes, suddenly serious. “It’s better.”

“Way better,” she agrees and she finds his cock and rubs it through his jeans. His head falls forward and his eyelids flutter closed and his hips rock into her hands. She fiddles with his belt buckle for a moment, then unzips his jeans and reaches down and—her dreams were never this warm, never. When she’d taken his cock in her hand before, it had felt soft, but never warm, never solid, never sturdy the way it does now, and Gendry’s groan is louder than ever it was when she had done something like this while they slept. She draws him out of his boxers and jeans and stares at him, at it, seeing milky moisture at the tip. She pumps once, twice, three times, then releases it. She tugs at his jeans and underwear, dragging them down his legs while he toes off his shoes and they fall to the floor. She sits there, looking down at him, lying on his bed his eyes hooded, his lips swollen, his cock hard and long and resting against his stomach.

“You’re incredible,” she breathes as she stares at him, and she sees color rising on his cheeks. He sits up and kisses her hard, nipping at her lips, his tongue in her mouth, his hands in her hair, cupping her breasts, finding the button of her jeans and loosening it. She parts her legs a little and he slides his hand into her pants and she gasps as his fingers find her clit because holy fuck she wasn’t expecting her stomach to drop that way when his fingers found her cunt. The muscles of her legs tremble and she clings to his neck as he rubs light circles into her while her heart hammers in her throat and her breath comes shorter and shorter, and she feels like the blood in her neck, her hands, her lips is on fire.

She widens her legs even more, and she feels him push his hand deeper into her pants but it’s not enough, and she pulls away from him, and together they tug her pants down. They laugh when they get caught at her ankles, just over her sneakers, and she twists around on the bed so that she can unlace one shoe, and then the other. Gendry pulls them loose and then removes her pants and underpants and she scoots back and sits there with her legs wide, waiting for him to kiss her again and reach down to rub at her cunt, hot and open and wanting his touch.

He does kiss her—but not where she expects him to. His lips are on the inside of her thigh, his chin rubbing her skin raw as he kisses his way up and up and—her eyes roll into the back of her head and she gasps out his name because fuck his tongue has never felt this good, not once. She feels him smile into her and she says his name again and he looks up at her and his eyes are so blue, and it’s just like that dream, but so unlike it, because even if the movements are familiar, the patterns he’s tracing on her clit with his tongue, nothing’s the same and yet everything’s the same, but everything’s different. She closes her eyes and arches her back and her fingers find her nipples and pinch at them while she gasps, and rocks her hips into his face and does her best to widen her legs even further, because the wider her legs are the further out her clit sticks, and the further out her clit sticks the more likely it is that she’ll—that she’ll…

Her body convulses as if every single piece of her decided to erupt at the same time, and oh gods this is better than a dream, better than her own fingers because she’s warm, he’s warm, and as her cunt clenches and unclenches in waves of pleasure, that rise through her stomach and down her legs and all the way up to her lips and scalp. She feels him nudge at her clit gently as he pulls away and watches, and somehow him watching her fall apart on his bed makes everything that much more intense because it’s really him, it’s really them, it’s everything she could ever have wanted.

She’s still breathing hard when he slides up the bed next to her. “How you doing there?” he asks with a grin, and if she weren’t suddenly so exhausted, she’d elbow him or think of some sarcastic reply, but she can’t right now. She can’t because everything is still in her head, and her body is suddenly unable to move anymore. She wonders, thinking back on her day, that she’d been able to move it at all before.

So she tilts her head and finds his lips and he a little more salty, a little more bitter, and she likes it because she knows he likes it because that taste is her.

“Arya?” he asks, and she hears concern there, and nervousness. “Are you—”

“I’m fine,” she says, but her voice sounds almost drunk. “I’m just—basking. Do you have a condom?” She asks him because she knows it’s on his mind, and has a feeling he won’t know how to ask her—not if he thinks she’s too tired.

“Yeah—hang on.” He sits up and reaches over to his bedside table

“Prepared aren’t you?” she teases. He blushes. “I’m not complaining.”

“I just figured…better safe than—”

“Sorry.” She kisses the side of his stomach because it’s nearest. She stays there, watching as he rips the foil and rolls the condom down his shaft. Then he turns and bends down to kiss the top of her head.

“You sure?” he asks.

“Yes,” she says, rolling her eyes. He slides his hips down the bed and connects his lips to hers as he settles himself over her and she feels the crown of his cock just at her entrance.

He pushes into her slowly with a hiss, and he closes his eyes, his nostrils flaring. She lifts her head and kisses his neck, bringing her feet up to wrap around his waist and he pulls out and pushes back into her. He’s almost painfully slow, as she kisses the veins of his throat, and if she hadn’t just come harder than she ever had in her life, she would have probably tried to get him to pick up speed, but instead, she holds on to him, tracing circles into his back and clenching her cunt around him whenever he’s sheathed inside her.

He opens his eyes and looks down at her, then bends his head and kisses her hard, his hips quickening and his breath coming faster in and out of his body. Arya runs her hands up his back to his hair and clutches at his scalp, holding him to her, kissing along the rough skin of his jaw, along his sweaty brow, down his nose as he thrusts faster and faster, his cock sliding in and out of her, warm and thick and right and his groans turn into whimpers, turn into gasps, turn into a strangled cry as he stills completely, his face contorted in an expression that’s both completely new and completely familiar.

He collapses onto her a moment later, breathing hard, his heart pounding against his ribs and all the air rushes out of her body, pushed out by him and she laughs gently, running her fingers through his hair again, because in their dreams when he collapsed onto her, she never felt as though he truly did because she never felt his weight.

“You ok there?” she asks him.

“Mmhmm,” he replies, and she grins, and feels him grin into her neck and she wraps her arms around him and squeezes him as tightly as she can.

“Good.”

She doesn’t know how long they lie there like that. She doesn’t know when he pulls out of her and disposes of his condom and then comes to curl around her. She just knows that when she wakes up the next morning, it doesn’t matter that she’d been too tired to dream because she was with him all the same.

* * *

Arya spends most of the next day feeling very sore, wincing at what feels like the slightest motion.  Her shoulder is killing her, and her mother suggests, not for the first time that maybe she should take some time away from softball before she does herself a serious injury. She shrugs it off—which only causes her to wince again, but she’d rather be wincing over her shoulder than the wincing that makes her blush scarlet every time she crosses and uncrosses her legs because to everyone but her mother, probably, it’s fairly obvious what might make her wince from that.  It certainly hadn’t seemed like Gendry would stretch her out quite that way last night, but she’d been delirious apparently and every step she climbs while walking with Jon through the old castle, or every time she sits on a bench comes the sudden, jarring reminder that last night, she and Gendry had had sex, and that it had been amazing, and that when they’d kissed goodbye that morning, they’d been grinning like idiots and she knew now that she had no finals left, she’d have nothing but time to spend with him—playing catch or walking around or in bed—whatever they wanted.

That thought makes her blush quite as much as the stinging between her legs.

“See you soon,” Dad says as she hugs him goodbye at the train.

“Yup. Just a week or so,” she says.

“You should bring a friend up,” Mom says.  “I never really did meet Gendry.”

“You will,” Jon mutters and Sansa elbows him as Arya says, loudly, “I’ll see if he’s free. He’s getting recruited so I don’t think he knows what his schedule’s like at the moment.”

“Any good teams?” Dad asks.

“Oldtown and Riverrun.”

“Oldtown,” Dad says, sounding pleased at the same time that Mom says, “Riverrun!” excitedly. They look at each other and smile.

As she and Sansa leave the train station together, her phone buzzes.

_Gendry Waters: Catch?_

_Arya Stark: You bet._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that's it folks! Thanks for coming along for the ride and I hope you enjoyed!

**Author's Note:**

> The Softball Team is:
> 
> Arya (pitcher), Myrcella (catcher), Shireen (third base), Lyanna Mormont (short stop), Joy Hill (left field), Elia Sand (center field), Obella Sand (first base), Alysanne Bulwer (second base), Cynthea Frey (right field), Weasel (pitcher), Eleyna Westerling (Pitcher), Rosamund Lannister (Pitcher)
> 
> The Baseball Team is:
> 
> Gendry (second base), Anguy (center field), Lem (left field), Tom (right field), Ned Dayne (first base), Merrit O’Moontown (pitcher), Jon O’Nutten (pitcher), Puddingfoot, Kyle (pitcher), Harwin (pitcher), Jack-Be-Lucky (third base), Likely Luke (short stop), Dennett, Mudge, Notch, Beardless Dick (catcher)


End file.
